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

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Ganrao wrote:

Elecrit Scepter + Shield v1

Because this isn't actually a pure LS build any more I gave it a new name. I took every accuracy node and the +30 Dex just to show you'd still have a lot of points left to play with even after doing so. You probably won't need them all if your gear happens to have enough. Use the extra points to go get more MaxHP or whatever you need.

The way accuracy nodes work is that early game the +10% accuracy sucks and is worthless, so don't take them until they're actually worth something to you. DO take the +20 Dex +10% accuracy because they are good early with the Dex flat +40 accuracy and the 10% boost will help you as you begin to get accuracy on your gear / from leveling up (+2 per level). If you have 800 base accuracy by level 70, for example, that +10% node is now worth 80 accuracy (40 dex worth). So those nodes are great and will serve you well all game long. Raw +% accuracy on other nodes will only really help you late game, but that just means you can skip them until you notice your accuracy is starting to drop noticeably and you aren't getting any gear that can compensate. As well, if you save your respec points, you could always remove those +accuracy nodes if you find some amazing gear that ends the issue for you forever.

As that other guy mentioned, without any Energy Shield up this build is susceptible to being stun locked to death, so Zealot's Oath is a handy fix for that and we were in the neighborhood anyway. If you think about it, even without the stun resist it makes sense to put your regen where you're losing "health" from first. What if a fight ends and you never took hp damage? Your regen stat would be completely wasted, meanwhile you wait for your ES to finish refilling longer before starting the next fight.

Because nothing in the Templar tree was taken that specifically boosts Lightning Strike over Glacial Hammer or Infernal Strike, I think having all 3 equipped is a viable idea. The game seems to throw a variety of elemental resists at the players pretty much non-stop, so being able to swap elements as you encounter resists seems like a great way to keep your kill speed going strong without having to go to a ton of trouble to overcome resistant mobs with curses. Just use Elemental Weakness on everything then follow up with whatever they already didn't resist. Use your crits to apply the elemental bonuses. Seems simpler than double cursing to me and probably nearly as effective. Since the build is for Scepters you can use all 3 elemental attacks by default (all work with 1H Mace), so why not try it? Might even be more fun than mindlessly spamming the same attack over and over ;)

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CNKalmah wrote:

IB isn't viable end-game as an AoE attack, neither is glacial hammer.

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CNKalmah wrote:

Since this build realistically doesn't need Life Regen, this is perfect.

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Optimoos wrote:

[...] Also, I'm interested in the discussion on whether or not to build around Resolute Technique. I'm guessing that part of the point of having Tempest Shield is negating the loss of crit shocks, along with adding static blows to the passive. Does eliminating accuracy as a stat on gear make things that much easier?

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waldo42 wrote:

Stuff

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Ganrao wrote:

You lose more than crit by pigeon holing yourself into getting shock stacks via that passive. You cut yourself off from making Glacial Hammer or Infernal Blow as useful as Lightning Strike, despite taking passives that give you +111% to ALL elemental damage, and not really any that boosts LS dps directly.

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Ganrao wrote:

You also restrict what gear is desirable to you. When you take RT you immediately are wasting item budget on any dex / acc / crit / crit x you find from that point onward. Now eventually sure, you can custom tailor all your gear, but that takes a while! In the mean time you are left with less useful gear options.

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Ganrao wrote:

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waldo42 wrote:

Stuff

You lose more than crit by pigeon holing yourself into getting shock stacks via that passive. You cut yourself off from making Glacial Hammer or Infernal Blow as useful as Lightning Strike, despite taking passives that give you +111% to ALL elemental damage, and not really any that boosts LS dps directly.

You also restrict what gear is desirable to you. When you take RT you immediately are wasting item budget on any dex / acc / crit / crit x you find from that point onward. Now eventually sure, you can custom tailor all your gear, but that takes a while! In the mean time you are left with less useful gear options.

As well, if you take Dex on gear / in a few nodes to gain +hit, you are also gaining some evasion. It seems like you see the biggest gains in evasion early on when you don't have tons of points in it, but that may be a false perception thing.

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Optimoos wrote:

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CNKalmah wrote:

Since this build realistically doesn't need Life Regen, this is perfect.

As a relative noob to the theory side of things in PoE, could you please explain to me what supports this statement? Is it a dependence on high ES gear such that you never dip into your health pool?

I'm playing HC Templar, currently level 37 and about to finish normal difficulty, my resists aren't bad, armor is all right, but I don't have much ES. I quite often feel vulnerable and that's just not the place to be in HC. You make a coherent argument and I like the look of your passive tree, but what concerns me is I see many passive trees thrown down without much consideration to the level of gear/stats required to support them. Outside of recommending some unique boots (have fun affording those as a mere mortal), you only discuss what skills to use, not what gear to pursue. Are we to simply follow Thehealthygamer's recommendations in the first post as what works for your build as well?

I've started more than a few characters, and honestly THG's "written for new players" guide has given me the most insight into this game, and I've gotten the furthest following it. Other builds seem to employ reliance on unrealistic luck in your loot drops or what gear people are trading at the precise moment you happen to be online. A little more clarification on your build would be appreciated, because I might just start yet another Templar to see how your build feels :)

Also, I'm interested in the discussion on whether or not to build around Resolute Technique. I'm guessing that part of the point of having Tempest Shield is negating the loss of crit shocks, along with adding static blows to the passive. Does eliminating accuracy as a stat on gear make things that much easier?

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CNKalmah wrote:

Energy shield - when up (even with 1 point), will give you a 50% chance to not be stunned.
Armor is noneffective against big hits and will therefore not mitigate enough damage all the time to be below the stun bar (Damage being 10% or 15% of your life IIRC). Therefore since both builds have not taken Unwavering stance (Stun Immunity) nor is Eye of Chayula mentioned (Stun Immunity amulet) it's very important to keep SOME energy shield present when swarmed/in battle/ fighting a boss.

For example, when brutus does his groundslam it stuns most characters and does significant damage dropping the average ES to 0 and digging into the life pool. With Zealot's oath regen is constant (so we don't have to run and recharge) so the next hit will be subject to 50% stun immunity if it lands.

(Hope you understand.)

With the above build I have posted you should ~ 4k life by level 70 or so.
ES and Armor/EVA are secondary defenses, Life is your primary when not using Chaos Innoculation.

Also to be honest, THG's build is actually called "The Lightning Templar" from closed beta. It's a very bad non-adaptive take to Open Beta. Too many balance changes to use the same build.