Templar Build Guide - Titan Quest
Skill Trees: Defense and Dream
Primary Skills: Psionic Touch, Phantom Strike, Trance of Empathy/Convalesence, Rally, Battle Awareness, Distort Reality, Colossus Form
Important Stats: +3 Skills or more, Resistances and % Attack Speed. Damage Reflection as well as Attack Damage converted to health or Life Leech are good too
Attributes: Strength primarily with enough Dexterity to equip gear like Stonebinder's Cuffs
The Templar is a combination of the Defense and Dream masteries and it's one of the more powerful builds in the game with amazing survivability and great damage. You can play this build with a melee weapon and shield or with a Throwing Weapon, depending on your preference.
As far as gear goes you'll want to use mostly Strength gear and focus on getting as much +Skills as you can while balancing good Resistances. You should focus primarily on Vitality, Poison and Pierce Resistance (Physical too if you can). You can let your Elemental Resistances slack off and keep them at 20 - 30% since they will cap out when you use Rally.
If you can find items with % Attack Speed, Offensive Ability, % Physical Damage increase or % increases to Strength/Dexterity they'll be your largest damage increases. You'll also want to use a fast attacking weapon and to get around 100% Attack Speed for optimum performance. I'd recommend weapons like Sabertooth (Act 3 Monster Infrequent) or Einherjar's Fate (Act 5 Monster Infrequent) for this build. Both can be easily farmed on all difficulties.
When it comes to deciding what gear you want you'll need to constantly ask assess your situation and determine if you're lacking in damage or survivability. Templars are one of the most tanky builds in the game and you'll constantly find yourself in situations where you can safely trade off some survivability for more damage. Using Trance of Empathy instead of Trance of Convalesence is a perfect example of this, more details about that are below.
Here is a list of all the skills you'll be purchasing on the Templar and why the skill is good and how I use it in the build. At the bottom you'll find videos and written examples of how to play the Templar.
(Defense) Rally: When you take damage this should be the first thing you use to heal yourself, use potions while Rally is on cooldown. Rally will also provide you with increased Resistances as well as a bunch of other goodies, so long as you get the passives.
(Defense) Battle Awareness: Long term buff that you'll want to use for a lot of survivability. Get the passives that go with it, especially Iron Will since that gives you 80% resistances to most of your Secondary Resistances (Sleep, Stun, Trap, Freeze).
(Defense) Colossus Form: Boss killing ability. Very long cooldown but you become insanely powerful (and big). When there are no bosses around to kill you can use this ability to run through maps like a giant and skip tons of enemies that you don't feel like fighting.
(Defense) Unyielding Phalanx: Added into the game during Atlantis and one of my favorite Defense abilities. Drop these ontop of a boss for tons of damage or a pack of enemies and they'll decimate them.
(Defense - Optional) Quick Recovery: The best way I can think of to describe this ability is it's like a tanking cooldown. Pop this to take less damage from all of the enemies attacking you. Will only work against melee or ranged (physical) attacks.
(Dream) Trance of Empathy: With this build you have your choice between two different Trances. If you want more damage you'll use Trance of Empathy, if you want more survivability you'll use Trance of Convalesence.
(Dream) Trance of Convalesence: With this build you have your choice between two different Trances. If you want more damage you'll use Trance of Empathy, if you want more survivability you'll use Trance of Convalesence.
(Dream) Psionic Touch: Your left mouse button ability. Only get the first two passives that are in the skill tree, the final ones only works for staffs.
(Dream) Phantom Strike: Your right mouse button ability. This ability has so many uses, it does amazing damage and AoE and is great for initiating fights, it's also a great escape tool if you're surrounded and can click on a far away enemy. I max this ability early along with the ability it's tied to.
(Dream) Distort Reality: This ability does AoE damage as well as stuns all targets it hits. For the most part you want it for the stun but the AoE damage it does isn't half bad either. Strongly recommend getting this.
(Dream - Optional) Summon Nightmare: Do you like pets? Nightmare is a good pet. Heavy Skill Point investment but this isn't a heavy Skill Point build so if you'd like a flying eyeball to accompany you through your journey, feel free to get this little guy.
Strategy for Regular Enemies: Start the battle with Phantom Strike then spam Psionic Touch. Distort Reality when Phantom Strike's stun is over and you will be able to keep a large pack of enemies stunned while you pick them off one by one.
Strategy for Bosses: Same as for regular enemies except when bosses are too difficult for you and Colossus Form is on Cooldown. In this instance you'll have to do the kite strategy. Run around like an idiot while Phantom Strike and Distort Reality are on cooldown; when they are active Phantom Strike to the boss and then pop Distort Reality - get in a few hits then run again. Rinse and repeat.
Other Tips:
- If you're struggling in Titan Quest and need some help check out my Best Leveling Abilities Guide, my Titan Quest F.A.Q or my Titan Quest Tips & Tricks pages for a lot of helpful info about this game. Additionally if you're curious what I think the Best Builds Are in Titan Quest check out that guide too. Last but not least you should consider getting TQVaultAE which is a third party program that nearly everyone who plays TQ uses.
- Curious what other sorts of gear you should get for this build? I have put together a long list of Overpowered Gear Combos in Titan Quest that you may find useful. The guide contains information for all sorts of build combinations and specializations; both offensive and defensive gear choices are included as well as Monster Infrequents you can farm for Best In Slot items for your characters.
- Focus on Dream while leveling, Psionic Touch will be your main ability for awhile and Phantom Strike is good to get early on too
- If you need Vitality Resistance I recommend you carry an Apples of Idun Artifact on you to swap out to for bosses. To easily make Artifacts in Titan Quest use the TQVault Third Party Program, it's an amazing program and essential if you plan to play multiple builds in this game.