picture with all permanent buffs, without Ascension or Iskandra’s Balance
Introduction
Templar somehow has a reputation of being a bad class for new players, since it’s a “tricky” one, “not a cookie cutter” and quite “glassy” too. It’s time for some myth busting.
Templar is a combination of Arcanist and Oathkeeper – two masteries that have one obvious thing in common – fire damage support. It’s essentially a twin class of Sorcerer, except that you can easily build Sorcerer into lightning damage too, while Templar is serving only to the Fire. Compared to fire Sorcerers though Templar’s fire resistance reduction is passive and Templar is a more mobile class due to having access to Vire’s Might, which is really important both for farming (shorter travel times) and staying alive in tough encounters (best form of defense is not getting hit after all).
There’s more than one way to level a Templar, and this one isn’t even my first – I had an almost complete Eye of Reckoning Templar early in Forgotten Gods release, also had a draft of Judgment + Callidor’s Tempest based Templar which I expected to work as well. I decided to roll with Albrecht’s Aether Ray this time because current best Templar build is actually a physical AAR one, so something that plays relatively similar to that seemed like a good idea for a beginner guide. Well, I say that, but it plays a bit similar to Vanquisher as well 
Skill Min-Maxing
Albrecht’s Aether Ray - main skill, main source of damage, max it;
Disintegration - you don’t need it before you get Mythical Mark of Ulzuin, so just one-point it, but once you have the item it’s a node that should be maxed as well;
Mental Alacrity - a must have passive if playing AAR, bad returns from maxing it though, so keep at 10;
Reckless Power - I choose it over Divine Mandate because budget version doesn’t have high enough OA to make proper use of high %crit damage Divine Mandate provides, which is mostly a result of going top-right corner of devotion map. I essentially traded crits for more beef.
Vire’s Might - one-point; I maxed it during levelling with Conflagration (which was only worth it because I used Zarthuzellan’s Archieve), but final build simply has no points for it;
Volcanic Stride - I max it because it’s a nice extra passive damage that lingers on the ground;
Tectonic Shift - softcap at 12, it’s only taken for cooldown reduction to Vire’s Might, and it grows extremely slow above 12, so just save points by keeping it at 12.
Summon Guardian of Empyrion - one-point to enable Celestial Presence;
Celestial Presence - the meta approach is resistance reduction skills have to be maxed, moreso if it’s a class with single RR skill;
Maiven’s Sphere of Protection - max it, it’s basically the health multiplier; the value points are first three, after which it grows linearly; still worth it it max, I softcap it at 12 though to save points for elsewhere; passive layer of defense;
Conversion - keep at 6, it’s a sweet spot;
Presence of Virtue - I softcap it at 12; any arbitrary amount of points would do, just a question how much you need that Offensive Ability it provides, and how many points you have available; when levelling I only put one point into it;
Haven - sweet spot is 5 / 10, so keep at 5; passive layer of defense;
Rebuke - maybe one point, if you can cut some corners elsewhere;
Resilience - due to the way it scales you want either 5 / 12 or 8 / 12; the latter is kind of a point stretch, so go for 5 / 12;
Ascension - standard defensive mechanic, max; active layer of defense;
Clarity of Purpose - one-point, not a bad thing but points are needed elsewhere usually;
Inner Focus - in the current meta Arcanists invest into Spirit and max this skill to capitalize on the investment; you need an even number, if you end up with an odd one with all skill bonuses then remove 1 point;
Mirror of Ereoctes - you want at least to softcap it at 12, not sure if higher investment is worth it; use as a pro-active defense (i.e. when enemy is charging a strong attack at you but you just use Mirror to soak it and keep damaging) or as a panic button;
Nullification - never underestimate a tactical buff purge, a lot of heroes got auras that buff allies; also used to remove debuffs from oneself; softcap at 10 for lower cooldown;
Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange - one-point to enable overload;
Overload - a buff with decent returns, you want to at least keep it softcapped at 12, max if lacking OA;
Elemental Balance - decent crit damage buff, but since it’s mainly an AAR build it doesn’t makes much sense to prioritize Elemental Balance before Disintegration; one-point and let +1 to Arcanist do it’s job.
Arcane Will - decent stuff, but there’s simply no excess points for that; one-point;
Fabric of Reality - decent stuff as well, but it’s hard to justify big investment on non-aether arcanists if you’re lacking skill-points; one-point it;
Devotions
- Crossroads (green)
- Scholar’s Light
- Spider
- Magi (bind proc to Aether Ray)
- Remove Scholar’s Light
- Crossroads (red)
- Jackal
- Solael’s Witchblade (bind proc to Aether Ray, rebind Magi to Vire’s Might)
- Bat (bind proc to Aether Ray, rebind Solael’s Witchblade to Summon Guardian of Empyrion
- Remove Jackal
- Remove Crossroads (green)
- Oklaine’s Lantern
- Remove Spider
- Crossroads (blue)
- Eel
- Sailor’s Guide
- Remove Crossroads (blue)
- Solemn Watcher
- Panther
- Lion
- Scales of Ulcama
- Remove Lion
- Hound
- Light of Empyrion
This is a devotion order optimized for minimum number of steps. When I play I usually adjust my devotions based on current needs. Notably p. 1 to 13 is pretty independent from p. 14 to 20, so you can partially do the former, then switch to latter, then go back to the former, etc, these two parts kinda converge only at 21. Bat isn’t super useful before you get a Gargoyle’s Girdle, and you don’t even need it much before you switch from Aether Ray to Conflagration, so it wasn’t part of my devotion setup until later. But since you’d rather have key procs levelled up by 100 and there’s a chance you get Conflagration early and rush Gargoyle Girdle I put it relatively early in that list.
The build has two low cooldown procs – Twin Fang from Bat and Fissure from Magi. They must be bound to high tick rate skills to be efficient. Binding Fissure to Vire’s Might with Volcanic Stride is a standard practice, as for Twin Fang the Ray skill ticks every 0.3 second at 100% cast speed, down to 0.15 second at 200% cast speed, allowing you to squeeze the most out of Twin Fangs. Eldritch Fire being bound to Summon Guardian of Empyrion is suboptimal, since you’d rather have it applied ASAP, while guardians can take their time walking up into the face of your enemy, but I didn’t want to introduce an extra button, so it ended up like that.
Levelling
Test character was levelled in a HC true SSF mode through close to fully cleared Veteran and Elite difficulty, finally getting level 100 with Ultimate being half done. This is even above my usual standards of testing.
If it’s your first character then I don’t recommend skipping expansions, because, while you certainly would level faster if you do so, factions of interest are exactly Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods factions, reputation with which you’d still have to grind up somehow, somewhat canceling out the previous attempt to save some time.
My normal progression on Normal or Veteran is vanilla campaign with slight detour into FG to get access to mobility runes, then AoM and last FG. Pretty much the same for Elite.
Stat point distribution is to taste, I went with 1:1 Physique and Spirit, because it’s currently a meta endgame practice to invest more into Spirit if it’s a build with Arcanist. A safer distribution would be putting more into physique. By level cap you need at least 724 Spirit for level 94 offhands, you also need to put around 7 points into Cunning to wear level 94 daggers.
- Elite Malmouth Aetherblaze Vestments - +3 to AAR fire item
- Elite Malmouth Void Pauldrons - nice stats and %fire damage
- Solael Stormfire Seals - try to roll ones with 4% OA before buying, done with restarting the game session.
- Coven Mark of the Arcane - decent stats and skillpoints
- Heart of Malmouth - a PRM amulet, but it has great stats for elemental ray too, as well as +1 to Arcanist.
- Ravager’s Eye - great augment that is commonly used to cover up for the negatives of investing into Spirit instead of Physique.
- Irrah’s Soulfire - %fire damage and +70 DA, three of these bump you up well for Ultimate
Levels 1-20
Start with Arcanist. Arcanist’s early levelling is fleshed out over time and there’s clear consensus that Arcanist is best levelled with Fireblast – a skill that comes from the Searing Ember component, with an aid from Olexra’s Flash Freeze for screenwide mob clear and some edge against more tough enemies.
Not sure there’s a need for detailed skill point by level breakdown, because you’re simply rushing Olexra’s Flash Freeze (OFF), max it, and then pushing Arcanist mastery bar.
One useful trick is to get 1 point into Nullification ASAP. This is because there are “Unstoppable” hero monsters that provide a CC immunity aura to their allies, which is a pain to deal with since you’d just want to clear them out of with one OFF or two. Nullification is needed to turn that enemy aura off.
At around level 15 you’ll get access to your first Blacksmith, the utmost priority is to craft Flintcore Bolts, which provides an improved Fireblast. Then craft youself a couple of Scaled Hides and Wardstones, put them into Chest, Pants, Amulet and Medal respectively. Last but not least once you hit level 20 you should craft Enchanted Flint, that +100% fire damage total is a very big deal that early.
Levels 21-35
Since the efficiency of Fireblast levelling really starts to fall off steeply after around level 35-40, during that level range we’ll be doing some respec preparations.
Continue to push Arcanist mastery bar to 50, once you hit that tier grab Reckless Power 12/12, then Mental Alacrity 10/10. While Reckless Power is there just for extra damage, Mental Alacrity is a super essential thing for Albrecht’s Aether Ray, because not only it directly cuts it’s insane energy costs, but that extra flat energy also means your energy potions are more efficient since they restore a % of your total energy. Flat energy bonus synergizes extremely well with Ectoplasm too, which is another piece of a puzzle to make AAR levelling work without running out of energy on every step. Ectoplasm drops from ghosts that are abundant in Act 2, with earliest access being a Spined Cove in Arkovia Foothills.
The respec itself is stupid simple, just put the points out of Olexra’s Flash Freeze and invest them in Albrecht’s Aether Ray. Since that would make Fireblast redundant replace Flintcore Bolts with another Enchanted Flint.
I did my respec at level 30, here’s a post-respec snapshot:
Scorching Ray Templar, level 30 Snapshot
One point from Absolute Zero went into Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange. This is because I had some bonus to it from gloves, otherwise not much of a deep meaning in it.
Past that point just hit 16/16 in Aether Ray and then open Oathkeeper and push Oathkeeper mastery bar as far as you can, get 1 point Vire’s Might ASAP.
Level 35 is notable because you’re getting access to your first faction items, mostly Devil’s Crossing and Rover ones. I recommend Devil’s Cuirass, Devil’s Spaulders and Rhowari Handguards. While at it also buy a Focusing Prism recipe from Devil’s Crossing, that’s another piece of a puzzle of making early Aether Ray energy management less difficult. From Rovers you should get a Restless Remains blueprint. Craft these and socket into respective gear slots.
If you’ve reached an Amalgamation already farm a Pulsing Shard from him, affixes don’t matter.
Levels 36-50
Skill-point wise you’re pushing an Oathkeeper mastery bar. You want 1 point in Vire’s Might in case you haven’t got it yet, 1 point in Volcanic Stride and then 12 points in Tectonic Shift. Once you got Volcanic Stride rebind your Fissure proc from Magi devotion to Vire’s Might, since Volcanic Stride is simply an amazing proccer for it.
Levels 51-65
Aether Ray is not exactly optimal when it comes to levelling. It takes a lot of investment to make damage good, so you’re bound to certain gear pieces that improve it, like the mentioned earlier Pulsing Shard or Loghorrean’s Corruption. You also need to somehow find conversions, a good piece is Chains of Ordas, but it can be quite difficult to get. That’s a lot of gear management to have in mind.
There’s a good replacement for Aether Ray – Conflagration. Conflagration is a relic that grants a skill with the same name, which is basically a pure fire ray that is about as strong as 20/16 AAR in terms of just flat damage, assuming you’re using an Ordas belt, and as strong as 24/16 AAR if we take an extra burn damage from Conflagration into account as well. That’s a lot of investment you can save and put into different stuff! Not only skill points – it means less restricted gear as well!
There is one major flaw in Conflagration compared to Aether Ray though. Aether Ray gets life steal simply from using Pulsing Shard. Conflagration itself can’t lifesteal at all, meaning your sustain would drop. But there’s an easy way to solve that – Bat constellation. Sustain from Bat is normally not that big, because Bat’s damage is pierce and vitality. If you convert it at least partially to fire though it would become phenomenal – a technique that earned a name “Fire Bat”. Ofcourse since Bat’s cooldown is low you have to bind it to fast ticking spell to maximize the efficiency, in our case it’s Conflagration itself.
The easy budget way to partially convert Bat to fire is to use the Gargoyle Girdle belt and Korvan Armor.
As for Conflagration, you can get it from Totems as early as level 35, or from a lucky Treasure Trove on the way, or randomly from some gear, or maybe as a reward for quest completion. If everything fails there’s an NPC in Malmouth called Hyram who will sell random tier 1 and tier 2 relic blueprints after you rescue him near the end of Malmouth Harbor district, just before the Crown Hill. If he doesn’t have Conflagration on your first try just restart the game session. It’s a good way to complete the collection of T1 and T2 relics.
The points you saved on Aether Ray should go into hitting 50 in Oathkeeper first and foremost, 1 point into Guardian of Empyrion and 12/12 Celestial Presence. This is highest priority, since at that point you really want resistance reduction from Celestial Presence. Then you can invest more points into Volcanic Stride.
Since you don’t need Pulsing Shard with Conflagration you have an option of using Zarthuzellan’s Archieve, which is damn great since the only thing more scary than a laser turret is a mobile laser turret.
Levels 66-75
Level 65 is when you get an access to non-elite versions of expansion faction’s gear, not just items but weapon and jewelry augments as well. Not like there are super strong fire augments this tier, but still you could bump your %damage multiplier by 188% if you use three Cinderbark Powders and two Korvan Sunpowders. I used different components for HC safety reasons.
Skill-wise I finally got Inner Focus to 12/12 to further capitalize on my Spirit investments as well as to get some offensive ability, then I got Haven to 5/10 since it’s a sweet spot, then began investing into Maiven’s Sphere of Protection to beef myself up.
Levels 76-84
Not much to say. Since you’re level already you can grab a Fettan Mask (map) on Elite, which is good for it’s bountiful of extra skill points. At this point you’d still be using Conflagration though, so skill points won’t be terribly important.
During that level range you’d probably hit max reputation with some of your vanilla factions like Black Legion or Homestead. This means you now have an access to armor augments. I highly recommend Mankind’s Vigil and Kingsguard Powder from Black Legion for patching up your resistances.
Also – a bit of a tip. You’ll need about 36 Chthonic Seals of Binding for endgame crafts, also about 24 Aether Shards. It’s better to farm them up now because best locations for that – Darkvale Village and Port Valbury Outskirts cap at level 75 on elite. The reagents stop dropping if you’re 10 levels above the enemy, so if you’re past that point you’ll have to farm Mourndale on Elite instead for Seals, which can be rather slow, or venture on Ultimate.
Skill-wise finish up Maiven’s Sphere of Protection, then max Ascension.
Levels 85-90
Aka the boring levels. Basically you’re prepairing for level 90, which is another faction gear breakpoint. You’ll need maxed out reputation with pretty much all expansion factions. For Malmouth Resistance and Barrowholm run Mourndale, for Cults just farm Eldritch Totems in the second part of FG campaign, the Coven of Ugdenbog is usually capped without much of your attention.
Once you done grinding up reputation with these factions you’ve got nothing to do on Elite anymore and should venture into Ultimate.
Things that become available at level 90:
Levels 91-100
Time to switch back to Albrecht’s Aether Ray. For that you’ll need Hexflame, which requires level 94 and 396 Cunning. Hexflame solves the AAR conversion woes as well as makes it easier to have high levels of AAR. For the relic you should craft yourself Iskandra’s Balance, if you don’t have it yet then farm totems until you get the blueprint. Incidentally, it requires Conflagration to craft, so don’t throw it away.
Once level 94 you should also make a run for Fettan Mask on Ultimate. The version on elite is level 75, the version on ultimate is level 94.
An interesting dilemma was whether I should go back to using Pulsing Shard for sustain and ditch bat for some more useful devotion, or keep using Zarthuzellan’s Archive and keep the Fire Bat. I decided on the latter since I feel it provides an interesting identity to the build.
Factions
Joining Kymon’s Chosen was mostly flavour based, actually gameplay-wise it makes more sense to join Order of the Death’s Vigil because they offer belt blueprints with +1 to Arcanist skills, while Kymon’s Chosen offer blueprints with +1 to Demolitionist instead. This isn’t terribly important because you can grab Chains of Ordan in Port Valbury if you decide you need an Arcanist belt, but personally I recommend using Gargoyle’s Girdle anyway.
As for Barrowholm… I never recommend going against them unless it’s necessary somehow. Especially since it’s an Arcanist. Arcanist means dumping more into Spirit, and dumping more into Spirit means you have to cover up for the missing health and defensive ability somehow, which is commonly done using Ravager’s Eye augments from Barrowholm.
The cult selection in Forgotten Gods doesn’t matter, I went with Solael on Veteran, Bysmiel on Elite and Dreeg on Ultimate.
One extra choice I think that kind of matters is whether let Direni live and take the key, or kill him. Usually I kill him, but I think it’s better to let him live on Elite, because it guarantees your access to Deprived Sanctuary, which is missable on Elite otherwise since enemies won’t drop a key if you’re too high of a level, meaning you’d have to take a hassle of venturing on Ultimate just for that. The interest in Deprived Sanctuary stems from the MI that drops there from the boss, which is necessary for Sacrifice relic, which in turn is necessary to craft Hexflame.
I’m level 100 now, what next?!
You farm!
You can farm totems in hopes of getting Mythical Mark of Ulzuin to make your Fire Ray stronger. Another interesting gear piece you can target farm for Fire Ray Templar is Covenant of the Three from The Sentinel.
If you’re looking forward to Physical AAR Templar then the key gear piece is the Inashkor’s Head, which drops from Inashkor on Ultimate. You’d also need Mythical Decree of the Circle of Five, which is another important gear piece for the physical AAR, but it’s a random drop, so your best bet is to farm totems, roguelikes or Shattered Realm if you can handle it somehow.
Last but not least you can try farming Vanquisher set, which is one of the Templar specials. The set only drops from Roguelike Dungeon’s end chests. With the exception of Tomb of the Heretic each dungeon drops one specific piece of the set.
There are other, less obvious options like Scion of the Screaming Veil builds, various Eye of Reckoning builds, something Pyran based, fire Trozan, perhaps something else. Just check the list of published Templar builds in Compendium
Endgame Items
- Hexflame - build defining item for fire AAR; craftable, recipe bought from Coven of Ugdenbog
Main hand:
- Zarthuzellan’s Archive - my go to off-hand since it improves mobility, which in turn improves both farming speed and survivability; it’s pretty hard to build AAR super tanky, and being able to reposition is just irreplaceable; drops from Zarthuzellan in Steps of Torment;
- Pulsing Shard - the usual AAR caster off-hand, taken for it’s lifesteal added to AAR; I decided against it in the end, but you might want to try it instead; drops from Amalgamation in Rotting Croplands;
- Mythical Aldanar’s Vanity - planned upgrade; has none of the benefits of the above, but +1 to both masteries and the proc ensures you have almost permanent uptime of Ascension; random world drop;
Off-hand:
- Elite Malmouth Aetherblaze Vestments - faction gear piece just right for the build;
Chest:
- Fettan Mask - the helm notorious for +1 to both masteries; drops from the Urn near the Maw of Enaht entrance;
- Covenant of the Three - a slightly unusual upgrade option I plan to try out; craftable, blueprint drops from The Sentinel;
Head:
- Elite Malmouth Void Pauldrons - faction gear piece, it’s here just because it has %fire damage and is slightly better than alternatives; not much deep reason behind it;
- Vanquisher’s Mantle - decent piece with %fire and physical resistance; target farmable, drops from Ancient Grove end chest on Ultimate;
Shoulders:
- Any green - it’s just a slot to patch up resistances after all;
- Aleksander’s Legguards - good for +3 to Disintegration and being a damage type neutral; only worth it if you have Mythical Mark of Ulzuin already;
Leg Armor:
- Any green with casting speed
Gloves:
- Any green with movement speed
Boots:
- Gargoyle’s Girdle - a great belt for the build since it converts Bat’s Twin Fang proc to fire; drops from Gargoyles, best place to farm is the end location of FG campaign;
Belt:
- Solael Stormfire Seal - most budget, useful stats; useless skill bonuses though; sold by Cult of Solael;
- Blazeseer Signet - very useful rings due to their vitality to fire conversion, which improves sustain from Twin Fangs and Tip the Scales; blue set piece, so you can get one using Transmute function of the Inventor relatively cheap, just requires a lot of iron; hence still considered a fairly budget option;
- Blazeseer Signet - very useful rings due to their vitality to fire conversion, which improves sustain from Twin Fangs and Tip the Scales; blue set piece, so you can get one using Transmute function of the Inventor relatively cheap, just requires a lot of iron; hence still considered a fairly budget option;
- Seal of Tawrot - blue rings with %fire and Disintegration bonus; pointless without M. Mark of Ulzuin medal; non-budget; drop from Magi Tawrot in Tomb of the Heretic on Ultimate;
- Mythical Combustion Band - a fire resistance reduction ring, since Templar is a single RR class it’s very useful, use one; random world drop;
Rings:
- Heart of Malmouth - a PRM amulet, but %elemental, huge casting speed and +1 to Arcanist make it very much worth it; faction craftable item, blueprint sold by Malmouth Resistance quartermaster;
- Vanquisher’s Gem - possible upgrade; target farmable, drops from Bastion of Chaos end chest on Ultimate;
Amulet:
- Coven Mark of the Arcane - most budget option, somewhat fits the build; faction item, sold by Coven of Ugdenbog quartermaster;
- Mythical Mark of Ulzuin - build defining item, without it it’s pretty pointless to invest into Disintegration; random world drop;
Medal:
- Iskandra’s Balance - an elemental Arcanist relic, best with +1 to Disintegration completion bonus
Relic:
Conclusion
The build turned out to be superb to my taste. I haven’t levelled with Aether Ray in a long while, pretty much since it received a rework a year ago, and now it feels surprisingly good if you can deal with energy issues. Another thing I rediscovered for myself is Conflagration relic. I tested it before, knew it’s good, but I had no idea it outperforms Aether Ray itself pretty much until you get Hexflame to funnel Aether Ray’s damage into single type. Last but not least, Vire’s Might turned out to be quite okay now. I hated that skill before, considered it awfully clunky, but I guess I missed time it received QoL tweaks.
All in all, across few dozens of characters levelled this Templar best classified as stupid easy if you know what you’re doing.