Mace/Shield LS Templar with Video and writeup(Written for New Players)

This guide really is written for new players. I remember reading build guides and having a zillion questions when I first started so this hopefully will alleviate some of those. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that the more you play the better you understand the game, and these builds really do start to make a lot more sense after 25 levels or so. Also don't stress too much about not having all of the skills the build calls for immediately, you will get those with time and using other skills while you level is perfectly okay!

UPDATED Build video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS0JvEp8mXE

More in-depth earlier version of video explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwxOR0yRdIw

A few other video guides for new players:


Lightning Strike Templar Playstyle

The playstyle of a lightning strike Templar is in a word, AWESOME. If you like using big shields, being up in the face of the enemy, and smashing everything in sight you're going to love being a LS mace/shield Templar. Nothing fancy. Just lots of lightning and death.

The Theory

Templar's have easy access to nodes which improve the effectiveness of shields, maces, and elemental damage. Combined these nodes lead to a tanky high hit point Templar which can dish out great AOE lightning damage.

30 Pt build



Final Build



Equipment
My Current Equipment


Weapons

Look for weapons with high +% physical damage. Added elemental damage is great as well. Basically, highest physical + elemental damage wins out.

Before you hit cruel difficulty you can use any weapon type that you find. Staffs, swords, hammers. One hand, two hand. It's all good. Use whatever you can find that gives you the most DPS output. Once you hit cruel difficulty start looking into finding a good one hander and a shield. The shield's extra armor and resists are critical to survivability with this build in cruel and merciless difficulties. It's not necessary to get a mace until you actually start investing points in the mace skill nodes.

Armor

Ideally you want armor that give both armor and energy shield- because you'll be taking lots of skill nodes that give +% armor and energy shield. But as you level it's fine to use armor that's pure armor. Again equip the things with the best stats even if they're not perfect for the build. Avoid pure energy shield and evasion items.

Try to get +health on every piece that you can. +health is a fantastic stat because of all the skill nodes that increase health as a percentage.

Run-speed on boots will help you level and clear faster.

Armor with increased damage of any type scales to your DPS well. For example + 2-7 lightning damage will then get the boosts from your +% elemental damage skill nodes.

Rings and Amulets

Your first priority with rings is to fill in gaps in your resistances. If you only have 20% resist to fire it is better to give up some DPS and health on a ring to gain 25% fire resist. After that just look for all the normal stats, +health, +damage, +attack speed. This build calls for resolute technique so ignore accuracy and critical hit.

Amulets are a real toss-up. Just find the best amulets you can that give you the biggest boosts to health and DPS. If you run into mana issues amulets with +% mana regeneration can be very helpful, especially when coupled with the skill clarity.

Resistances

Resists are a must and should be stacked whenever possible. The biggest mistake I see from people posting on the forums is that they completely neglect elemental resists. If you have 25% resist to fire, adding an additional 25% resist to fire cuts the damage you take from fire in HALF. That's HUGE and should not be overlooked. It is well worth sacrificing DPS and health to boost resistances. Strive to keep all of your resistances aside from Chaos) above 60%.

Flasks

Always have at least two health flasks. If you can manage to get a combination of clarity and mana regen items to keep your mana full without flasks then that is ideal. Otherwise I run two mana flasks as well and my third flask slot I use a Granite Flask. The +4,000 to armor on a Granite Flask will save your ass in a dangerous situation and will allow you to tank through damage.

Bandit Quest

You can kill all the bandits for a extra skill point. Skill points are always useful. Another great option is to take the +40 hp option. End-game you're going to have a massive amount of +% life, so that 40 hit points will scale into something like 80-200 extra hitpoints(I haven't actually done the math, but that sounds right haha).

This section is ongoing and will be updated frequently as I keep leveling my Templar.

Skills

Lightning Strike - You can pick this up from a quest around level 10. It is an attack skill so it bases its damage on your melee stats(your physical weapon, % to hit, attacks per second stats). It converts a percentage of your physical damage to lightning damage. When the skill lands it shoots out three lightning arcs which are guaranteed to hit any mobs they come across(this means the separate lightning strikes don't have separate rolls to see whether they land or hit, they will always hit as long as your primary strike landed as a hit).

Support Gem Options for Lightning Strike:

* Weapon Elemental Damage - Will generally increase your DPS the most out of all the support gems.
* Reduced Mana - Very useful. Especially if you run more than one aura(ex. Tempest Shield + Wrath, or Wrath + Clarity)
* Chain - Great for increasing your AOE effectiveness
* Faster Attacks - Always a good option for any attack skill.
* Melee Physical Damage - Doesn't give as big of a DPS boost as Weapon Elemental Damage, but can be stacked with Weapon Elemental Damage as long as you can handle the mana costs.

Don't stress too much if you can't find all the right support gems. Use what you come across, try different combinations out, there is not one set of support gems that are superior to the rest, it really comes down to your equipment build and personal preferences.

Tempest Shield - This makes you do lightning damage to attackers anytime you block with a shield. On my first play-through right now I'm level 33 and still haven't found the Tempest Shield skill. So don't worry too much if you don't find the skill right away. You probably won't start using mace/shields exclusively until you're 40+ anyways.

While farming I like to keep Tempest shield off. The biggest benefit of Tempest shield is the increased % to block. The DPS it adds to you is less then that of Wrath, and it becomes mana prohibitive to run both Wrath and Tempest Shield so I like to run Wrath most of the time and then Tempest shield when I go against bosses or higher level maps.

Added Lightning Damage is a good support gem for Tempest Shield. Reduced Mana is also useful.

Wrath - This is an aura that adds lightning damage to your attacks(and anyone else in your party). It's a good boost of DPS and can be picked up from a quest in Act 2.

Wrath is the primary aura I run. The added DPS helps your overall leveling and farming efficiency greatly. The only time you don't want to run Wrath is when you're running Tempest Shield and can't spare the mana. Ideally if you can run both and still have mana to function that's the best option.

Keep an eye out on the int requirements as you level Wrath. You'll want to stop at level 7(60 in required) until you've picked up enough Int nodes to cover the increasing intelligence costs.

Decoy Totem - This totem can be picked up in Act 1 from a quest and is very useful when you're leveling. I've found it to be very useful in fighting tough rare/boss mobs. You can run around, drop the totem, and then get three to four good hits in on the mob before it kills your totem. Then just run away and repeat the process.

Heavy Strike - Good skill for single target DPS that you can pick up early on while leveling. Depending on the layout of your support gems this may or may not do more DPS than your lightning strike later on in the game. But if it does do more DPS then use it over lightning strike when fighting single opponents.

Clarity - Can be a useful aura to run if you have mana issues. If used in conjunction with Tempest Shield or Wrath it can leave you with a very small working mana pool, but with a few +% mana regeneration items that small mana pool can be totally sufficient for your skills. If that is the case it will free up some mana flasks for more health or utility flasks.

Be careful when leveling Clarity. Each level of clarity increases the mana reserved by 20(it starts out with a mana reserve of 60). For a Templar I don't think it's worth leveling Clarity beyond level four or five.


The skills section is also ongoing and will be updated as I level.

Link to the writeup: http://www.thehealthygamer.com/2013/01/26/path-of-exile-lightning-strike-templar-build-mace-shield/

I'll check this thread pretty regularly so feel free to post questions. And I'll be updating that guide as I level up more and learn more myself.

My Templar

Its my first build with trial and error method. I am little shocked that its almost identical with yours :D I am a noob after all.

I use Infernal Blow + Fireball + Leap Slam + Wrath and Conductivity curse <- this would be nice for your build ;)

Thats only because I had chosen it on the start . On 24 lvl IB does about 130 DPS with lightining/burning/physical dmg

Equipment ? Armour + maces right now.

I don't understand why you showcase a LS templar for mace/shield then use a 2h staff in your video.

Anyway I looked at your build while I don't think this is as good as I could've done I have made some changes. I took out 2x +6% ele resis nodes and got you a +15%. I also removed a good amount of +10 stats that where really there for no reason and replaced them with a ton more health. When I say a ton I mean a ton prolly around 8 more health nodes or so.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAnEEswVbE8wUTRVQGekaMh0UI00kiyftKMUpTzEBMok1gDbpPQ9ANkE_Q2NEckVHRtdMNU3YT31P81FgUeZR-VfiWPVdxmaeZ71wfXFNcql35Xy7fNl99YBWgW-Cm4TEiLqLjIx2j0aQVZrPm6GdxJ48ogCnCKmVqlKsqrQvtPm1BLcxwBrEFcT20NDa3d6w3sHhc-Nq44LkIuSt5wvsy-0g7m_wH_Pd-tLzviSqGYUZLtSPud3vDvIv51JUSV8_9kiMz1BQWGPG2D38fLgpLg==

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I don't understand why you showcase a LS templar for mace/shield then use a 2h staff in your video.

Hah should have mentioned that in the video. Low levels it doesn't really matter what weapons you're using. Just use the best one you can equip really. That staff I found had +93% increased physical damage, far outclassing any 1hander I found during that time.

Now I'm using

Once you get above 30 it becomes a lot easier and more manageable to start trading and picking up the actual gear you need. Before that it's just easier and faster to equip whatever the hell you find thats the best and plow on ahead.

Quick question - at what level would you stop leveling Wrath?

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shyftyx wrote:

Quick question - at what level would you stop leveling Wrath?

That's a really good question, anyone chime in here? I'm 37 and have leveled wrath to level 8 and have no mana issues. However I think this with tempest shield active you'd have mana issues.

wow i guess im not the only one going for scepter and shields =)

ive been rather lucky ive picked up a Weapon Elemental Damage support gem (61% more weapon elemental dmg at lvl 1) with my scepter that sits at 20% natural wed and a 12% modifier for it im loveing this

i have been useing glacial hammer up until now, just 5 minutes before the server went down lightning strike dropped =)

great build you should add the Weapon Elemental Damage support gem as a must for this build

i do have wrath and tempest shield. and yes im contantly out of mana thats why im running 2 health potions and 3 mp potions but im going to start going up the int tree and try and fit in some more mp regen items so remedy that but it works tremedously well

cool thread.

I play as a duelist atm, but I found a good mace today with lots of elemental damage stats along with spell power, and I thought hmmm, maybe a Templar has some builds that use it, something to think about for my next character perhaps.

I think Ill be giving it a go when my Duelist gets tired, and I'm definitely going to use the guide to help get my head around it.




will that +spell damage stack on to the Templars attacks the way elemental damage would? are they considered spells?

Why do you not take any points in Lightning Damage?

36 Templar, just finished normal difficulty. Basically running this same build with a couple tweaks. Just a couple things that helped me out:

1. I kept Glacial Hammer and Infernal Blow for single target damage, LS for everything else. It's worth it to keep both to counter elemental resists. Grabbed a weapon elemental damage support gem and socketed both GH and IB to it. Great DPS boost but can be a mana hog. Grabbed a 30% mana regen amulet to help at this point (mid-30s). I kept Heavy Strike for a while to counter full elemental resists but I ended up dumping it for another skill. Too many other fun toys to play with.

2. Enduring Cry plus Molten Shell = time bomb tank. It's great because it gives you extra shielding and, when the gem is leveled up, the explosion from MS can wipe groups by itself. Add in the charges from EC for a DPS boost. Fun on a bun. I see OP is HC though, so might not be the most prudent tactic :D

3. I ended up grabbing Precision on the skill tree (+10% Acc +20 dex) because missing happens. A lot. I can always respec later, but it really helped towards the end of Act 3. Wasn't having much luck getting (or keeping) +acc on gear at the time.

4. Even with the increased mana regen from the tree and gear, keeping Wrath and Tempest Shield running at the same time just eats up too much reserve mana (imo). Wrath is cheaper at low levels, but that's still a big chunk. I ran TS with a +lightning dmg support gem for a bit, but that bumps the reserve to 35% alone.

5. Haven't used decoy totem yet, but rejuvenating totem is a good "oh shit" button. Helps to gap big groups in between casts of Molten Shell.

None of this is strict advice, mind you. Just some noob notes from a noob :D Definitely having fun with it. Running with a similar leveled Witch. With her dropping Elemental Weakness everywhere, things move pretty quickly. Cheers!