Are templars bad, or am I bad?

So the third character i made was a Templar. I decided to go a strength int hybrid route using staff weapons, i figured this was one of the Templar's intended paths, and that it would be straight forward. I got totally pooped on by most enemies after about level 10. Is this because Templar is bad, hard, or i just suck in general? What builds for Templar have people found to be effective?

I've generally built templars as very tanky casters, charge right into a group and just start aoeing it all down.

Also a Bow templar with avatar of fire is very strong.

Mind posting your passive build (though at lvl 10 it shouldn't make much difference).

I played a pretty straigthforward staff grondslam templar in the recent 90 minute cutthroat ladder race and came in 4th. It wasn't super amazing, but it certainly wasn't ineffective.

At such a low level it should be difficult to have a bad character. Are you keeping your gear up to date? leveling your skills properly? Upgrading your flasks?

I have tried witches, templars and rangers. Witches seemed the strongest up until level 20, but then templas became very good. If you want to get strong fast with a staff build then go straight for avatar of fire.

I'm playing a staff Templar (and without AoF), and have had no problems all along. One factor might be that I started with a Marauder and a Witch, and was able to twink the Templar (one of two; the other is 1HD and Shield Charge) to a degree, enabling them to rely a bit more on good gear. In fact, a regular rotation of characters should keep a stable of different types well-equipped. =^[.]^=

I haven't had too many issues with my Templar. I'm currently at the beginning of Merciless. I built mine with a "Mjolnir" theme, so 1h maces and lightning damage. I'm also using a shield which helps a lot.

Here is what my passive tree looks like at level 43: Mjolnir Templar, level 43

I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of passive support for the Armor/ES hybrid armor types. There's Body and Soul and mostly that's it. I guess Shield Mastery grants you 20% increased defenses from your shield. You can get some pretty decent elemental resistances going using kite shields and Shield Mastery though.

Right now I'm working my way towards those two Titanic Might keystones over there, as well as Fitness.

Given that I'm rocking the hybrid armor, I'm not sure how much good that extra 23% armor from shields is actually doing me, and I can save three points by skipping that those passives. Also, I'm not seeing much to build my crits around here, so I'm not sure how much good those three 15% one handed crit chance passives are doing me either.

Rebuilding my passive tree taking that into account, I might end up with something like this: Mjolnir Templar, redux

Anyway, my Templar has worked out pretty good so far. It did seem like a bit of a slow start, though.

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kunzadar wrote:

So the third character i made was a Templar. I decided to go a strength int hybrid route using staff weapons, i figured this was one of the Templar's intended paths, and that it would be straight forward. I got totally pooped on by most enemies after about level 10. Is this because Templar is bad, hard, or i just suck in general? What builds for Templar have people found to be effective?

Templar is the class that has the easiest access to AoF. Given this fact, they definitely aren't bad. But yeah, you obviously want to build AoF if you want to be effective.

Alternatively, if you hate jumping on bandwagons, you can go for a pseudo-AoF build that uses the three half-elemental melee skills (glacial hammer, lightning strike, and internal blow) combined with stacked elemental damage and elemental weapon damage bonuses. Elemental weapon attacks are much easier to boost with bonuses than physical weapon attacks, especially with the templar part of the tree.

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tpapp157 wrote:

At such a low level it should be difficult to have a bad character. Are you keeping your gear up to date? leveling your skills properly? Upgrading your flasks?

Not sure about templars, but this wasn't my experience with my marauder build. Levels leading up to important keystone skills for your character tend to be difficult, and as such, I had some of the hardest times in normal and the first half of cruel; once I got a good weapon, blood magic, and resolute strike, the rest of the game was a breeze til chaos.

AoF is going to be temporarily removed and nerfed in a week or so I believe, so I wouldn't get too used to it :P

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Oh yeah, Avatar of Fire is removed in 0.9.9 while we teach him how to play fair.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/29706

I've played a sweep templar quite happily. But at level 10 you shouldn't be having problems. As stated above, perhaps you just need new gear.

AoF will get the nerf bat for sure, haha. Once a single node is all but required to be the most effective, you can bet it'll be hit hard by the devs.