The 8 Best Templar Builds for ESO

In this article, we’ll cover the best Templar builds for ESO in PVE and PVP. We’ll focus first on optimizing magicka and stamina DPS for dungeons and trials, then move on to preparing your Templar to better support your team. We’ll finish up with the top solo builds for both stamina and magicka, followed by the top PVP builds. 

With the addition of the Waking Flames DLC on August 23rd, there have been some changes in how to optimize your Templar. The Flames of Ambition patch placed both magicka and stamina Templars in a good position, fitting them nicely into any PVE group and letting them dominate in PVP. Known as the best healer class in the game, the Templar also has access to great AOE damaging skills, such as their famous Jabs (Puncturing Strikes). They also have a unique passive that lets them quickly resurrect players with more health, making them ideal for veteran dungeon and trial groups. 

Keep in mind that we won’t be including items like Harpooner’s Wading Kilt or Mantle of Siroria in these builds, since they’re better in situations where you don’t have to move around in actual combat. The Kilt is offensively amazing but requires you not to take direct damage, and Siroria requires that you stay in one place for the whole duration of the set proc, which is simply unrealistic in combat scenarios. If the fight allows the use of these sets to their full potential, however, feel free to go for it.

Let’s get started!

The 8 Best Templar Builds in ESO

Here are ESO’s best builds for the Templar. We’ll begin with the magicka templar, one of the sturdiest magicka classes in the game.

1. PvE — Magplar DPS Build

Race: High Elf (Dark Elf or Khajiit) | Mundus: Thief | Food: Solitude Salmon Millet Soup or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 magicka) | Attributes: 64 Magicka

The Magicka Templar offers a unique playstyle for a magicka-based character, as you’ll need to stand very close to the enemies you are taking down. The Templar’s Jabs ability is simply too good not to use, and while it deals AOE damage, it doesn’t have the longest range. You won’t have to change much about this build between group and solo play, as the Templar naturally keeps themselves healed up regardless of the circumstances.

The Magplar benefits the most from the races that give magicka passives, and the High Elf passives synergize perfectly with the Templar’s channeled spammable. Dark Elf and Khajiit are also high-damage races to play your Magplar on, so any of these three will be easy picks. Bretons can be used if you need the sustain at the expense of damage dealt.

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Medusa Lightning Staff	(Back Bar) Crushing Wall Lightning Staff
Puncturing Sweep	Unstable Wall of Elements
Purifying Light	Solar Barrage
Radiant Oppression	Channeled Focus
Harness Magicka	Blazing Spear
Inner Light	Mystic Orb
Shooting Star (Ult)	Elemental Rage

The Magplar can deal great single-target damage, especially with the Purifying Light ability, which stocks up 20% of the damage you deal to an enemy for an additional hit after six seconds. Magplars still want to play up close and focus around using their Puncturing Sweep skill, both for the raw damage and healing and for the passives that play off its use. The skill itself gives you 40% health back based on the damage you deal, and the Piercing Spear passive grants you 10% crit damage and 10% more damage dealt to a blocking target.

Spear Wall gives you minor protection for six seconds, reducing your damage taken by 5% (which will have a 100% uptime in most cases). Finally, Burning Light makes it so when you deal damage with an Aedric Spear ability four times in rapid succession, you deal a flat amount of either magic or physical damage, depending on which would be higher. These three passives work most efficiently on a spammable, and Jabs offer just that.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Zaan	Divines
Shoulder	Zaan	Divines
Chest	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Legs	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Feet	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Hands	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Belt	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Jewelry	Medusa	Bloodthirsty
Weapon 1	Medusa	Precise (w/ shock damage enchantment)
Weapon 2	(Perfected) Crushing Wall	Infused (w/ weapon damage enchantment)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Law of Julianos (craftable), 5 Mother’s Sorrow (from Deshaan), 2 Monster Set / Willpower Set

Critical strike sets are still essential right now, especially since Flames of Ambition reduced the overall amount you could give yourself from champion points. Our first set will be Medusa (from Arx Corinium), which gives us that much-needed spell critical. We also gain Minor Force at all times while this set is active, giving us an increased 10% critical damage. Because this is heavy armor, we’ll need to keep this on our jewelry and front bar staff, but if you feel a bit squishier than you’d like, you can always change out your Mother’s Sorrow robe for a Medusa cuirass and switch up your Jewelry to get those five-piece bonuses again.

Our second set is the Overwhelming Surge set (from Tempest Island), which grants us not only a great AOE damage ability, but great sustain. This helps our abilities hit more often with a full magicka pool and keeps our overall damage high with that damaging shock proc. If you feel like you’re struggling to get crits, Mother’s Sorrow (form Deshaan) can be a great substitute, especially if you don’t need the extra sustain.

Zaan provides us with a large chunk of single-target damage, but requires you to stay within eight meters of your target to keep up its damaging beam. This is, of course, no problem for the Magplar, because you’ll need to be at least that close to get your Jabs off. With a 1/3 chance of activating off of a light or heavy attack, Zaan will deal flame damage that doubles every second for six seconds, dealing out massive amounts of damage if you can stay close for the whole duration. 

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Precision, 50 Biting Aura (slot), 50 Master-At-Arms (slot), 20 Preparation, 50 Fighting Finesse (slot) , 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Hardy, 20 Flawless Ritual, 30 War Mage, 50 Thaumaturge (slot), 20 Blessed, 20 Tireless Discipline

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian, 50 Siphong Spells (slot)

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

2. PvE – Stamplar DPS Build

Race: Khajiit (or Dark Elf) | Mundus: Thief | Food: Garlic Cod with Potato Crust or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 stamina) | Attributes: 64 Stamina

The Stamina Templar plays very similarly to the way Magicka Templars do, getting up close and personal with both heavy AOE and single-target damage. The best way to set up your Stamplar for group PVE content will be with the dual wield / bow setup shown here with Stinging Slashes daggers.

Khajiit is the best race for Stamplars, as they help maximize damage with their great 12% buffed critical damage and healing, along with their overall well-rounded stats. Dark Elf is close behind with more consistent damage in fights due to their extra 258 weapon damage and 1910 stamina.

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Stinging Slashes Daggers	(Back Bar) Thunderous Volley Bow
Biting Jabs	Endless Hail
Rending Slashes	Poison Injection
Barbed Trap	Binding Javelin
Ritual of Retribution	Restoring Focus
Deadly Cloak	Power of the Light
Flawless Dawnbreaker (Ult)	Ballista (Ult)

The Stamina Templar’s great variety of skills make them great at damaging single targets and groups of enemies. Rending Slashes deals a lot more damage when synergized with the Deadly Strike set, which grants an additional 20% damage. Power of the Light should be set on enemies as you initiate a fight, as 20% of the damage you deal for six seconds will be cast on the enemy again as physical damage.

Deadly Cloak will deal great damage to enemies within five meters of you while also granting you Major Evasion, reducing damage taken from AOE attacks by 20%.

We’re opting for Poison Injection over Consuming Trap on our back bar for a meaningful spammable in cases where we’re no longer able to stand close to an enemy due to mechanics. Endless Hail needs to be kept at 100% uptime as well to get the most out of the Thunderous Volley set that stacks damage over time.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Deadly Strike	Divines
Shoulder	Deadly Strike	Divines
Chest	Arms of Relequen	Divines
Legs	Arms of Relequen	Divines
Feet	Arms of Relequen	Divines
Hands	Arms of Relequen	Divines
Belt	Arms of Relequen	Divines
Jewelry	Deadly Strike	Bloodthirsty
Weapon 1	Stinging Slashes	Nirnhoned + Precise (w/ damage health posions)
Weapon 2	Thunderous Volley	Infused (w/ weapon damage enchantment)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Hunding’s Rage (craftable), 5 Leviathan (from Crypt of Hearts), 2 Monster Set / Agility Set

We have a mix of damage focus in our armor sets, aiming toward an overall increased damage in our single-target and AOE damage. For our single-target damage, there is no better stamina set than the (Perfected) Arms of Relequen (from Cloudrest). This set requires extended fights with a single target to truly shine, but the stacking damaging status effect can’t be beat. You can get a stack every half-second from light / heavy attacking your target (maxing out at ten stacks), and you deal damage each second for each stack placed on your target.

Our second set is Deadly Strike (from PVP Bruma Vendor), which gives a 20% damage boost to our Physical, Bleed, Poison, and Disease DOT abilities. Luckily for Stamplars, our spammable Biting Jabs is a channeled ability, so it benefits from this 20% damage boost! This set also synergizes well with our Stinging Slashes (from Dragon Star Arena), which help the Rending Slashes ability deal more Bleed damage over time. Skills that benefit from this set include: Biting Jabs, Rending Slashes, Barbed Trap, Poison Injection, and our two ultimates (Flawless Dawnbreaker or Ballista). 

Finally, our last damage set is (Perfected) Stinging Slashes (from Dragon Star Arena), which gives our Rending Slashes a great 1635 damage boost. The boost applies to both slashes on the ability as well as the ten-second bleed over time.

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Tireless Discipline, 20 Precision, 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 50 Thaumaturge (slot), 20 Preparation, 50 Biting Aura (slot), 20 Hardy, 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Battle Mastery, 30 Mighty, 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 20 Blessed

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

3. PvE – Stamplar Tank Build

Race: Imperial (or Nord) | Mundus: Lord | Food: Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce or equivalent (4462 health, 4105 stamina / magicka) and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability with more recovery (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 20 Health, 44 Stamina

Tanking with a Templar is now much easier thanks to the changes made over recent patches. While Stamplar tanks weren’t the go-to tanking option before the Flames of Ambition patch, the updates to several of their key tanking abilities make them excel at tanking.

The best race for tanking on the Templar will be the Imperial for their 2000 health and stamina bonuses, as well as their bread-and-butter 6% skill cost reduction. Nords are also still a great option to tank with, considering their 1000 health, 1500 stamina, 2600 bonus physical and spell resistance, and quicker ultimate generation.

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Drake’s Rush Sword / Shield	(Back Bar) Drake’s Rush Ice Staff
Pierce Armor	Elemental Blockade
Heroic Slash	Restoring Focus
Extended Ritual	Bone Surge
Radiant Ward	Living Dark
Repentance	Inner Rage / Silver Leash
Shield Discipline (Ult)	Aggressive Warhorn (Ult)

First we’ll go over the basics of tanking in ESO on your Templar (feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re confident in your tanking basics). Tanking in ESO doesn’t mean you actively have to taunt every enemy — instead, you want to lead the group so you gain aggro first upon entering an area. You can then actively taunt high-priority enemies that can one-shot your allies, including but not limited to bosses and other big monsters you encounter during dungeons and trials.

Taunt falls off every fifteen seconds, so be sure to reapply it every 12–13 seconds just in case you get stunned. You don’t want to force your group to run around while you try to regain aggro!

Finally, always face enemies away from your group so that they won’t get caught up in surprise AOE or splash damage. As a tank, you can use either Inner Rage to taunt enemies at range or Silver Leash to help position stunnable enemies.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Encratis’s	Reinforced
Shoulder	Encratis’s	Reinforced
Chest	Yolnahkriin	Reinforced
Legs	Yolnahkriin	Sturdy
Feet	Yolnahkriin	Sturdy
Hands	Yolnahkriin	Sturdy
Belt	Yolnahkriin	Sturdy
Jewelry	Drake’s Rush	Healthy
Weapon 1	Drake’s Rush	Decisive 1h (w/ flame enchantment), and Sturdy Shield
Weapon 2	Drake’s Rush	Infused (w/ Crusher enchantment)

As a Stamplar tank, you’ll want to provide your group with both damage and other bonuses so you don’t have to focus purely on defensive sets due to your many healing and defensive abilities. Our first set is (Perfected) Claw of Yolnahkriin (from Sunspire), which gives you and up to eleven group members Minor Courage for fifteen seconds after taunting an enemy, increasing weapon and spell damage by 215. You also gain Minor Aegis at all times, reducing your damage taken from Dungeon, Trial, and Arena monsters by 5%, helping reduce the strain on your health bar over time.

Our second set will be Drake’s Rush (from Black Drake Villa), which grants bonus ultimate generation for you and any team members within fifteen meters of you. After bashing an enemy, you and up to three group members gain Major Heroism for twelve seconds, giving three ultimate every 1.5 seconds. Since you can only proc every eighteen seconds, you’ll have about six seconds of off time, but the 25 ultimate gained from the bonus will help your team use their ultimates more regularly and help you cast more Warhorns.

For the Templar Tank’s monster set, the group make up will decide largely what set you’ll want to use. Encratis’s Behemoth (from Black Drake Villa) is a powerhouse of a set aimed at increasing a magicka group’s flame damage by 5% while also giving the group 5% flame resistance. To proc the effect, you’ll need to deal fire damage, which is why we have our main hand sword enchanted with a flame glyph. Tremorscale (from Volenfell) will win out for Stamina intensive groups, as it reduces an enemies physical resistance by an additional 2395 whenever you taunt an enemy. 

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Tireless Discipline, 20 Preparation, 50 Ironclad (slot), 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (slot), 50 Unassailable (slot), 50 Enduring Resolve (slot), 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Hardy, 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Blessed

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 20 Tireless Guardian, 30 Fortification, 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 50 Strategic Reserve (slot)

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

4. PvE – Magplar Healer

Race: Breton (Khajiit or High Elf) | Mundus: Thief | Food: Solitude Salmon Millet Soup or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 magicka) | Attributes: 64 Magicka

This is our top pick for the best Templar build in ESO. The Magicka Templar is known as the best healer in the game, and with good reason. On top of their very powerful healing skills, they also provide great utility through cleanses and resource management synergies.

We chose Breton for the best Magplar Healer race, as they have some pretty great magicka passives, but you can also go with Khajiit for their increased critical healing or the High Elf for their higher spell damage and comparable magicka pool bonuses.

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Grand Rejuvenation Restoration Staff	(Back Bar) Roaring Opportunist Lightning Staff
Illustrious Healing	Elemental Blockade
Combat Prayer	Luminous Shards
Breath of Life	Extended Ritual
Purifying Light	Channeled Focus
Radiant Aura	Energy Orb
Reviving Barrier (Ult)	Aggressive Warhorn (Ult)

As mentioned above, Templars offer some of the strongest in-game healing and provide necessary utility. If you’re looking for the best Templar healer build, this is it. We don’t recommend using Elemental Drain, because Radiant Aura applies Minor Magickasteal to all enemies in a twenty-eight-meter radius for twenty seconds, as well as a 15% recovery bonus in each stat. Be sure to place it on whichever weapon bar you find yourself using most often.

Purifying Light is an important skill not for its damage or healing, but for the passives it works with. Prism gives you 3 ultimate just for casting it (with a cooldown of only six seconds), while Illuminate grants Minor Sorcery and its 10% spell damage bonus to you and your group for twenty seconds. This is amazing for magicka-oriented groups, but the buffed-up heals make it useful even if you’re the only one who benefits from the magicka boost.

Extended Ritual is your cleanse ability. It costs a hefty amount to use, but can mean the difference between life and death for you or a teammate. It cleanses up to five harmful effects from yourself immediately, and allies can activate the Purify synergy to heal and remove harmful effects from themselves. Luminous Shards provide great sustain for those who synergize with it, giving them 3960 magicka and stamina. Channeled Focus is your source for Major Resolve and Ward, increasing your physical and spell resistance by 5948, and standing within the rune will amplify this by another 50% to 8922. 

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Symphony of Blades	Divines
Shoulder	Symphony of Blades	Divines
Chest	Spell Power Cure	Divines
Legs	Spell Power Cure	Divines
Feet	Spell Power Cure	Divines
Hands	Spell Power Cure	Divines
Belt	Spell Power Cure	Divines
Jewelry	Roaring Opportunist	Arcane
Weapon 1	Grand Rejuvenation	Powered
Weapon 2	Roaring Opportunist	Infused (w/ Weakening enchantment)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Law of Julianos (craftable), 5 Sanctuary (Banished Cells), 2 Monster Set / Willpower Set

The first set we’ll be using is Spell Power Cure (from White Gold Tower), which is a versatile set that, unlike Olorime, doesn’t require you to position ground AOE in the correct spot for it to work. Instead, SPC activates whenever you overheal a target — they gain Major Courage for five seconds, increasing their weapon and spell damage by 430. Since it’s pretty easy to overheal at least once every five seconds of combat, uptime should be around 100%

Our other set will be Roaring Opportunist (from Kyne’s Aegis), which gives you and up to five other group members Major Slayer after completing a fully charged heavy attack. Major Slayer increases your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 10%, which is a very powerful buff. This buff lasts for one second for every 600 spell damage and 6300 magicka you have, which should mean anywhere between 10–12 seconds depending on your current buffs. Roaring Opportunist can only affect a target every twenty-two seconds; in a Trial, you can quickly give it to the rest of your group by heavy attacking again. If you aren’t doing Dungeons or Trials, replace this set with Hollowfang Thirst.

For your monster set, you’ll want to go either Symphony of Blades (from Depths of Malatar) for better sustain, or Earthgore (from Bloodroot Forge) for more bursty heals. We use Symphony of Blades since it keeps your team’s resources topped off and grants 570 stamina or magicka every second for six seconds (depending on their primary resource) whenever you heal a target who’s below 50% of that resource. This helps out overall damage and gives your stamina teammates the ability to more readily roll dodge when they need to, as they will have their stamina high through the whole fight.

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Blessed, 50 Soothing Tide (slot), 50 Swift Renewal (slot), 20 Precision, 50 Enlivening Overflow (slot), 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Hardy, 20 Blessed, 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 20 Tireless Discipline

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

5. PvE – Magplar Solo Build

Race: High Elf (Dark Elf or Khajiit) | Mundus: Thief  | Food: Solitude Salmon Millet Soup or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 magicka), and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability with more recovery (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 64 Magicka

Soloing content as a Magplar can either be a breeze or a challenge depending on the content you’re doing. You can stay relatively unharmed due to your healing abilities and defensive skills, but you’ll also need to focus on positioning for the sake of your close-range Puncturing Sweep spammable.

We suggest using the High Elf for the solo Magplar, as you gain the very useful passive of taking 5% less damage when using an ability with a channel or cast time, which includes Puncturing Sweep. The extra 2000 magicka and 258 spell and weapon damage also benefit you greatly, with the addition of 625 magicka or stamina restored once every six seconds upon casting an ability. Dark Elves and Khajiit can work great too, falling just behind in terms of survivability.

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Medusa Lightning Staff	(Back Bar) Crushing Wall Lightning Staff
Puncturing Sweep	Unstable Wall of Elements
Purifying Light	Solar Barrage
Radiant Glory	Channeled Focus
Radiant Ward	Elemental Drain
Inner Light	Mystic Orb
Shooting Star (Ult)	Crescent Sweep (Ult)

When soloing content with your Magicka Templar, you’ll want to place Elemental Drain and Purifying Light on the target you plan to direct your light attacks and Puncturing Sweep on so you can sustain your magicka more easily. Purifying Light should be kept up 100% of the time as it deals a huge chunk of damage after the 20% stored total damage you dealt over 6 seconds goes off on the enemy.

You’ll want to start your Solar Barrage and Mystic Orb as you enter a fight, followed by your Unstable Wall of Elements to damage all of the enemies in an area. Puncturing Sweep will heal you for 40% of the damage it deals, so you won’t need Ring of the Pale Order to get your health back regularly. Your execute, Radiant Glory, also heals for 20% of the damage it deals, which can add up to a lot due to its execute scaling of 480% of its initial possible damage during its 1.8 second cast.

Radiant Ward will be your shield that grows in strength depending upon how many enemies you damage within a five-meter radius of you when you activate it, increasing the shield’s strength by 9% for each enemy hit. Similar to Radiant Ward, you can use Dampen Magicka instead as they both scale off of your maximum health, although instead it increases in size by 6% for each piece of light armor you wear, maxing out at a 42% bonus. I prefer Radiant Ward for the extra damage and the shield bonus that comes when fighting larger mobs.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Iceheart (medium)	Divines
Shoulder	Iceheart (light)	Divines
Chest	Medusa	Reinforced
Legs	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Feet	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Hands	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Belt	Overwhelming Surge	Divines
Jewelry	2 Medusa, 1 Overwhelming Surge	Bloodthirsty
Weapon 1	Medusa	Precise (w/ shock damage enchantment)
Weapon 2	Crushing Wall	Infused (w/ weapon damage enchantment)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Law of Julianos (craftable), 5 Mother’s Sorrow (from Deshaan), 2 Monster Set / Willpower Set

The sets we will use for our Solo Magplar start off with Overwhelming Surge (from Tempest Island) for its great sustain and damage. Giving you necessary magicka and spell damage, this set really shines with its five-piece bonus. When you deal damage with a class ability, you surround yourself with an aura that deals shock damage every second for six seconds to enemies within eight meters of you. 15% of the damage you deal is returned to you as magicka, and this effect can occur every seven seconds. 

Our second set will be Medusa (from Arx Corinium) for the spell critical it has to offer along with the Minor Force buff that increases your critical damage by 10%. This set provides you with 2,863 spell critical overall, so the bonuses from Minor Force will be easy to capitalize on. Because this is a heavy armor set, we are taking advantage of this and using the chest piece to gain the most benefit out of a reinforced piece of armor, as well as the Undaunted Mettle passive. 

For our monster set we’ll be using Iceheart (from Direfrost Keep) for its extra spell critical and great damage shield you get whenever you deal critical damage. With this damage shield of 5000 for six seconds, you also deal a damaging frost aura that scales off of your max spell or weapon damage depending upon which is higher. This is the more protective and AOE damage oriented option, but if you need more single-target damage, use Zaan (from Scalecaller Peak).

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Preparation, 20 Precision, 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 50 Biting Aura (slot), 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Hardy, 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 20 Flawless Ritual, 30 War Mage, 50 Thaumaturge (slot), 20 Blessed, 20 Tireless Discipline

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 50 Siphong Spells (slot), 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian, 30 Fortification

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

5. PvE – Stamplar Solo Build

Race: Orc (Wood Elf or Khajiit) | Mundus: Thief | Food: Garlic Cod with Potato Crust or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 stamina) and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability and more resources (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 64 Stamina

Stamina Templars deal great AOE damage and take full advantage of what the two-handed skill tree has to offer in addition to their already powerful class abilities. Stamplars deal great damage and stay safe even under hordes of enemies using a combination of class and weapon skills.

You can use any race that has stamina benefits, but we find Orc to be easiest to use with their bonus 1000 health and stamina, extra 258 weapon damage, and the 2125 health they gain every four seconds from dealing damage. Wood Elves, Khajiit, Dark Elves and Redguards also make strong Stamplars, depending on what bonuses you want the most.

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Deadly Strike Greatsword	(Back Bar) Thunderous Volley Bow
Biting Jabs	Endless Hail
Power of the Light	Resolving Vigor
Brawler	Restoring Focus
Reverse Slice	Ritual of Retribution
Rally	Barbed Trap
Flawless Dawnbreaker (Ult)	Empowering Sweep (Ult)

Soloing on a Stamina Templar places you face to face with the hardest enemies in the game, so having shields and heals to sustain yourself in combat is essential. Utilizing Restoring Focus will give you Major Resolve and Ward, increasing your physical and spell resistance by 5948 and 240 stamina every one second for twenty seconds. Standing in the rune will further this resistance bonus by 50% to 8922, making you extremely tanky.

Using Brawler on groups of enemies will provide you with huge shields, increasing its potency by 50% up to six times for a grand total of a 300% larger shield. As you do not have access to a chaining ability to bring enemies in, positioning yourself around corners will help funnel the enemies and your large damaging AOE from Ritual of Retribution along with Endless Hail will dwindle down those on the outskirts.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Slimecraw (Heavy)	Reinforced
Shoulder	Deadly Strike	Divines
Chest	Dagon’s Dominion	Divines
Legs	Dagon’s Dominion	Divines
Feet	Dagon’s Dominion	Divines
Hands	Dagon’s Dominion	Divines
Belt	Dagon’s Dominion	Divines
Jewelry	2 Deadly Strike, 1 Ring of the Pale Order	Bloodthristy
Weapon 1	Deadly Strike	Precise (w/ damage health poisons)
Weapon 2	Thunderous Volley	Infused (w/ weapon damage enchantment)

As our Stamplar deals high amounts of AOE damage, and our Biting Jabs count as such an AOE ability, Dagon’s Dominion (from The Cauldron) works perfectly for this build. The five-piece bonus adds 492 weapon damage to all of your area of effect abilities, making our spammable and other key damaging abilities hit for much harder. As this set already gives 258 weapon damage and 1096 stamina, it works perfectly for crushing enemies quickly. 

Our second set is Deadly Strike (from PVP Bruma Vendor), which gives a 20% damage boost to our Physical, Bleed, Poison, and Disease DOT abilities. Biting Jabs is especially affected by this due to its channel time. Barbed Trap and Flawless Dawnbreaker also benefit from this set and help deal significant damage, though you can switch to Relequins (from Cloudrest) for higher single-target damage against bosses with more health.

Finally, instead of a monster set, we will be using one piece of Slimecraw for the extra 771 critical chance alongside The Ring of the Pale Order for the 20% lifesteal it provides. Remember to take this off if you plan to switch to group content, as nobody else will be able to heal you and the percent bonus will reduce by 4% for every ally you’re grouped with. Our back bar set will be (Perfected) Thunderous Volley (from Maelstrom Arena) to add additional damage to our Endless Hail ability. This increases the damage of Endless Hail each second, and the bonus itself increases each time to a maximum of eight times. 

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Tireless Discipline, 20 Preparation, 20 Precision, 50 Biting Aura (slot), 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 20 Hardy, 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Blessed, 50 Thaumaturge (slot), 20 Battle Mastery, 30 Mighty

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 50 Bloody Renewal (slot), 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

6. PvP – Magplar DPS

Race: Dark Elf (or Khajiit) | Mundus: Lover / Apprentice | Food: Solitude Salmon Millet Soup or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 magicka), and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability with additional recovery (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery). | Attributes: 64 Magicka

The Magicka Templar is great for PVP in either groups or in 1v1 scenarios due to their ability to heal themselves and teammates with ease. You can focus toward keeping your allies alive in Cyrodiil or Battlegrounds to win the fight, or go solo and funnel all of the healing into yourself to become unkillable.

For this build’s race, we’ve gone with Dark Elf for their high spell / weapon damage and increased 1910 magicka and stamina, which helps our spell damage and survivability. The 4620 flame resistance helps you take far less damage from most magicka players’ flame staves and abilities, especially when it comes to dragonknights. High Elves and Khajiit can work amazingly as well with their magicka pool and sustain benefits. 

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Hrothgar’s Chill Flame Staff	(Back Bar) Puncturing Remedy Sword / Shield
Puncturing Sweep	Pierce Armor
Toppling Charge	Extended Ritual
Purifying Light	Channeled Focus
Living Dark	Honor the Dead
Elemental Drain	Race Against Time
Crescent Sweep (Ult)	Temporal Guard (Ult)

As a Magplar, you can initiate fights very easily with your Toppling Charge, which causes you to leap to a target and stun them for three seconds. Once you’re in, you can cast Channeled Focus to increase your resistances, but you have to be careful of those who are using the new Hrothgar’s Chill set. If they stun or immobilize you, you’ll take 26% of your total physical and spell resistance as frost damage in an AOE blast that can damage your allies up to eight meters away. This requires a cautious use of Channeled Focus, and it can be extremely effective if not countered with this set.

Similarly, your Extended Ritual is a life saver in most cases, but can kill you if it clashes with the new Plaguebreak set. If you’re turned into a Plague Carrier, you’ll take disease damage over ten seconds; if it’s removed early, it’ll deal a similar amount of what the DOT would have been all at once, dealing 10% more for each other enemy hit in an eight-meter radius. This places Templars in the awkward position of holding some of their staple abilities until the coast is clear of these potential hazards.

Living Dark will provide a great amount of defense by forcing enemies to refrain from using direct damage abilities against you, as it will slow their movement by 60% for three seconds and heal you based on your spell damage or max health (depending upon which is higher). Because these effects can occur every half second, you can get eight heals from this ability’s short four-second duration. Depending on the situation, you can go all in and use your damaging Crescent Sweep multiple times throughout a fight or save up for your Temporal Guard to undo time, resetting your health, magicka, stamina, and position to what it was four seconds before.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Magma Incarnate (light)	Impenetrable
Shoulder	Magma Incarnate (medium)	Impenetrable
Chest	Diamond’s Victory (heavy)	Reinforced
Legs	Diamond’s Victory (light)	Impenetrable
Feet	Diamond’s Victory (light)	Impenetrable
Hands	Diamond’s Victory (light)	Impenetrable
Belt	Diamond’s Victory (light)	Impenetrable
Jewelry	Hrothgar’s Chill	Bloodthirsty
Weapon 1	Hrothgar’s Chill	Sharpened (w/ weapon damage enchantment)
Weapon 2	Puncturing Remedy	Powered 1h (w/ escapist poisons) and Reinforced shield

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Law of Julianos (craftable), 5 Spinner’s (from Malabal Tor), 2 Monster Set / Willpower Set

As mentioned above, the new PVP sets are very powerful right now, so utilizing Hrothgar’s Chill (from PVP Rewards of the Worthy) will put you ahead of any competition that’s not using it. You get much needed offensive penetration, armor, and health, along with the five-piece bonus of bursting frost magic when you stun or immobilize an enemy. You apply the chilled status effect and deal a wild 26% of their total physical and spell resistance to them and any enemies within eight meters of them as frost damage. Because this can proc every seven seconds, you can deal ridiculous damages in 1v1 as well as 1vX situations, especially if you hit a tankier opponent.

Diamond’s Victory (craftable) can be used very easily on Magplars, as you can deal damage from afar and then use Toppling Charge to gap-close to gain its bonuses. Using an ability from seven meters away or more will give you an additional 437 spell and weapon damage to your melee ranged attacks, and damaging them from seven meters or less gains you 437 spell and weapon damage to your DOT and ranged attacks. Gaining all of this at once is easily manageable for Magplars, allowing them the full benefit of the burst of spell / weapon damage.

For the monster set, we’ll be using Magma Incarnate (from The Dread Cellar), which gives you 129 magicka and stamina recovery. Additionally, when you heal yourself or a group member with a single target heal ability, you grant the lowest-health group member within twenty-eight meters Minor Courage and Minor Resolve, increasing their spell and weapon damage by 215 and armor by 2974 respectively for ten seconds. It will then bounce to a nearby group member within eight meters and apply the same buff for ten seconds up to three times. Of course, if you are playing solo, this effect will simply cast on you instead.

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Precision, 50 Biting Aura (slot), 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Hardy, 20 Blessed, 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 20 Flawless Ritual, 30 War Mage, 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (slot), 20 Tireless Discipline

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 50 Slippery (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian, 30 Piercing Gaze

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Breakfall, 30 Out of Sight

7. PvP – Stamplar DPS

Race: Orc (Wood Elf or Khajiit) | Mundus: Lover or Thief | Food: Garlic Cod with Potato Crust or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 stamina) and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability with additional recovery (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 64 Stamina

This Templar PvP build is another one of our favorites and I had to include it in this best Templar builds roundup. Stamina Templars have great mobility, and their strong toolkits make them powerful contenders in both 1v1 combat and against groups. Having straightforward rotations and high pressure in fights, Stamplars can create a lot of mayhem with their never-ending Jabs.

Spamming Templar Jabs has become a running joke over the years, but there’s a reason you see it so often — it works to deadly effect. We recommend playing an Orc Stamplar for their great sustain and extra weapon damage, but you can go with any stamina-intensive race (like Wood Elves or Khajiit)

The Build

a) Skills

(Main Bar) Frenzied Momentum Greatsword	(Back Bar) Puncturing Remedy Sword / Shield
Biting Jabs	Pierce Armor
Stampede	Resolving Vigor
Repentance	Extended Ritual
Executioner	Restoring Focus
Rally	Binding Javelin
Dawnbreaker of Smiting (Ult)	Temporal Guard (Ult)

Make sure to cast Pierce Armor on your enemy when starting fights to help reduce their physical and spell resistance before you use your damaging abilities. Buffing up with Rally and Resolving Vigor before you charge in with Stampede sets you up for success, and following up with a preemptive Restoring Focus keeps you healthy during the fight with extra physical and spell resistance.

Just like with the Maglar above, don’t cast this if you know there’s someone nearby with Hrothgar’s Chill — they’ll deal even more damage to you if you have higher armor.

Blinding Javelin is your main source of crowd control, and it can stun an enemy for up to four seconds. Dawnbreaker of Smiting is a good stun that leads straight into an execute, as it deals large amounts of damage and sets you up to finish off an enemy with repeated Executioners.

b) Armor & Weapons

Slot	Gear	Trait
Head	Deadly Strike	Impenetrable
Shoulder	Deadly Strike	Impenetrable
Chest	Plaguebreak	Reinforced
Legs	Plaguebreak	Impenetrable
Feet	Plaguebreak	Impenetrable
Hands	Plaguebreak	Impenetrable
Belt	Plaguebreak	Impenetrable
Jewelry	Deadly Strike	Bloodthirsty
Weapon 1	Frenzied Momentum	Sharpened (w/ weapon damage enchantment)
Weapon 2	Puncturing Remedy	Powered (w/ escapist poisons) and Impenetrable shield

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Hunding’s Rage (craftable), 5 Spriggan’s Thorns (from Bangkorai), 2 Monster Set / Agility Set

We start our sets with Deadly Strike (from PVP Bruma Vendor) to push up our Physical, Bleed, Poison, and Disease DOTs and channeled abilities by 20%. Biting Jabs, Dawnbreaker of Smiting, and Plaguebreak all benefit from this set. Ancient Dragonguard can be a good alternative if you don’t want to go all-in on a damage-focused build and prefer to play it a bit safer.

We use Plaguebreak, as this new PVP set deals a nasty amount of DOT to enemies and has a chance at a high burst damage explosion. When you deal direct damage to an enemy, you turn them into a Plague Carrier for ten seconds, dealing disease damage for the duration. If the plague is removed early, it explodes, infecting enemies within eight meters of the carrier and dealing damage immediately equivalent to how much the DOT would have done if it went the full duration. This explosion also deals 10% more damage for every enemy hit within the radius, having the potential to take down whole zergs (groups of PVP players). This scales off your weapon or spell damage, depending upon which is higher.

We’re using an arena set for our front bar instead of a monster helm, this being the (Perfected) Frenzied Momentum (from Vateshran Hollows). When Rally is active, casting stamina abilities in combat generates a stack that increases your weapon damage by 38 up to a max of five stacks. Once you hit max stats, your next heavy attack consumes them and releases an explosion around you that scales off of your weapon or spell damage, depending upon which is higher. The extra 190 weapon damage is very nice at full stacks, and timing your ultimate and Executioner with a heavy attack right before is a great way to finish off an opponent.

Our backbar weapon is the (Perfected) Puncturing Remedy (from Dragonstar Arena), which requires the use of Pierce Armor to activate. When you deal damage with Pierce Armor, you heal for an amount over five seconds based off of your max health and gain resistances equal to that number. This will keep you more resistant to damage while also gaining a useful heal over time with the added bonus that your enemy now has both Minor and Major Breach applied to them, reducing their physical and spell resistances by 8,922 in total.

c) Champion Points

Essentials in Order:

Warfare: 20 Tireless Discipline, 20 Precision, 50 Deadly Aim (slot), 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (slot), 20 Hardy, 20 Elemental Aegis, 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 20 Battle Mastery, 30 Mighty, 50 Wrathful Strikes (slot), 20 Blessed, 20 Eldritch Insight

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Fortified (slot), 50 Slippery (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian, 30 Piercing Gaze

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot), 50 Breakfall, 30 Out of Sight, 50 Treasure Hunter (slot), 50 Steadfast Enchantment

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