Giam

Introduction and Disclaimer:

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I would like to start by saying that I have been a Templar for several months, not years. I am by no means a game master. When I first started playing EQ2, my main was a tank. I got tired of dying all the time because my healer didn’t really know what he/she was doing, so gave up my tank and started a Templar. I would suggest to anyone out there who wants to be a healer, that you at least play a tank up to the thirties, you will get a unique outlook on battle.<o:p></o:p>
That said, the following guide is only my opinion and suggestions based on my in game experiences as a tank and a healer. If you have further suggestions please feel free to state them.<o:p></o:p>
I am going to talk about grouping, spells and equipment at the lower levels because I feel a guide is mainly meant for those who are starting the character new and may not have much of an idea as to what is being discussed when using the higher level terminology. I know I was certainly lost when trying to read other guides.

Generalities

So, you want to be a Templar.

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A Templar is a pure healer. That is your sole purpose in the game. This means you are awesome at healing, and suck at most everything else. The running joke is every battle for a solo Templar is an epic one. <o:p></o:p>
In addition to healing, Templars have some pretty good buffs that groups really like.<o:p></o:p>
By the way, if you do not like grouping and prefer to go solo, I highly suggest creating another character. A Templar is a grouping character. You will get most of your experience from groups as it is difficult to solo a pure healer. Even doing any but the simplest quests can be difficult. So, if you want to be able to heal and solo, I would highly recommend checking out the druid classes.<o:p></o:p>

To be an Inquisitor or a Templar, which is better?

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Many people will argue about this point. In fact, you will see similar arguments all over the chats in game. I will not argue it here. <o:p></o:p>
Each brings different things to the table. A Templar is a defensive/reactive healer. We bring HP buffs, mitigation buffs, etc and only a few debuffs. An Inquisitor is more an offensive/direct healer. They share many of the same spells and serve the same function, but an Inquisitor can also do more damage on average than a Templar. Played well, I don’t think one is really any better than the other. It is really a question of Good/Evil, Qeynos/Freeport.<o:p></o:p>

The racial question.

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At this point in the game, because of all the equipment stats out there, it really doesn’t matter which race you pic. Pick a character that looks interesting to you and play it up.<o:p></o:p>
Note: If you want to play an evil character and be a Templar, you will have to betray your character around level 10 or so. There are numerous guides out there on how to do this. The same is of course true for the opposite, good character to evil class.

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Equipment

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The Important Stats

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Wisdom is the most important because it directly affects your mana pool, the amount of power you have available to use. When you start hitting higher level groupings and doing some serious killing, you are going to want to have as much power available as you can possibly get.<o:p></o:p>
Intelligence is the next important. This directly affects the effectiveness of your spells. This means your heals will be for larger amounts. It also makes your offensive spells much more effective.<o:p></o:p>
Any stat that increases the rate at which your regenerate your power, increases your healing rates or increases your healing crits, is also very important. But be careful to balance that with your main stats. An overall high average of heals is going to better than the occasional amazing crit and low averages.<o:p></o:p>
I also like to mix in a little strength and stamina. Not a whole lot, but the strength increases the amount you can carry, which is nice because you are a plate healer, and all that armor gets very heavy. Stamina increases your hit points. It shouldn’t happen often, but sometimes a mob will get away from your tank. You will want to be able to withstand a few a hits.

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The Armor of a Templar

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As I said before, Templars are plate healers. That means we can wear the same armors that you will notice your tank wearing (or should be wearing). We can also wear chain, leather and cloth. I would not suggest those types of armor because of the lower mitigation. You will occasionally pull agro away from the tank because of your healing. Mobs do not like healers.<o:p></o:p>
Look for armor that has stats for wisdom, intelligence and stamina. Generally player made is better than most drops at lower levels. All of the player made armor for Templars will say Plate and when you examine it, it will show stats for those three. I also highly suggest going for the rare amours. These are available at every Tier’s the second level, meaning, level 12, 22, 32, etc. These have much higher stats. They are also much more expensive. If you are new player, you will probably not be able to afford these armors yet. You could take up harvesting and harvest the necessary rares needed to make your armor and then get an armorer to make it for you, especially if you are in a guild. Some guilds will help their healers out with things like armor.

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Spells of the Templar

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As I stated before, you are a healer first and foremost. That means, you should be upgrading your heal spells as high as you can afford. At lower levels, there is not really much difference between an apprentice 4 and an adept 3, but as you begin to level, you will notice an increasing difference. The same is true of adept 3 versus masters. The adept 3’s and masters are also very expensive. The adepts require rares to be player made. Again, you could harvest them and find a sage to make them for you. Masters are drops off mobs.<o:p></o:p>
The offensive spells are entirely up to you. I upgrade them only because I can afford to. You will want them on your hotbar because they are occasionally required for the heroic opportunities.<o:p></o:p>
At certain levels, master 2 spells become available to you. I suggest the same as most people: go for the spell that you can’t find an upgrade for, or can’t afford the upgrade.

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Weapons and Shields

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My wife laughs at me because I refer to my weapons and shields as accessories. You won’t be using them much and are really only for additional stats. Here again, player made rare items are usually much better than anything that will drop at lower levels.<o:p></o:p>
I have heard it said that all priests should go with two handed weapons. I did some experimenting and found this to be odd. With a wand and shield (or hammer or club) equipped, both rare, my stats were higher than if I equipped a two hander with better stats than both of the other two combined. While this may sound strange, you may wish to experiment yourself. A two hander with decent stats may be much more affordable than trying to find two separate pieces of equipment.<o:p></o:p>
If you find yourself getting killed a lot, you may want to opt for the shield as it will add to your protection stats.

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Deities?

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There is really only one God for Templars and that is Tunare. You can begin the quests to get faction with Tunare in Kelethin.

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AA Lines

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AA Lines to be concerned with<o:p></o:p>
The same as what you should be concerned with equipment stats. I suggest starting with wisdom and then going to intelligence and later stamina. These really add some boosts to your stats. Read down the lists of AA’s available to you and decide based on what you have encountered and what you think you will need. Don’t worry too much if you find later that you made a mistake, you can reset your AA’s in game.<o:p></o:p>
Under the Templar AA’s, there is a confusing web of things available. I found it was easiest to increase those things that I used: Amending Fate, Glory of Combat, and the Cures. The cures did not used to work as the description of them explains, but that bug has been fixed and they do now work. I use the enhanced ones because I figure any healing is a good thing.<o:p></o:p>
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Now to the meat of being a Templar.

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You are equipped and in your group ready to go. Now what?

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Strategy and Tactics

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First you and your group need to understand that you are a reactive healer. This means that you will cast a spell on your tank/group that will trigger a heal every time he/they takes damage. This will really piss the mobs off. A good tank will already have them all taunted and they won’t run for you. But at lower levels, their taunts are not always that great, and pallies and sk’s (no offence intended) don’t get as many taunts as the pure tanks (guardians and zerkers). If your tank dies, you will probably be the next on the mob’s list. Just be prepared.

What to cast and why

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As you grow into your role, your style will change and you will develop a way of doing things that will work for you. Here are my suggestions to get you started and hopefully minimize the number of times you and your group will get wiped. A neat little spell is Amending Fate (level 20). If you find you are low on power toward the end of a fight, or you find you are lazy at the end of the fight, throw this out there for an additional group heal at the sweet end.

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Single Mob: If your tank is only pulling one mob at time and it is not heroic or is several levels lower than your tank, you can just sit back and watch and throw the occasional direct heal his way, hell, you can even throw in your smites or even bash away yourself. Everyone will laugh at your lack of damage, but hey, every little bit counts right? J<o:p></o:p>
If the mob is of higher level than your tank and/or is heroic, you may want to tack a reactive on him. Depending on the amount of damage he is taking, you may want to throw on the individual reactive (Bestowal of Vitae, level 12) or if he seems to be taking a lot, you can throw on the group reactive (Soothing Sermon, level 14).

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Multiple Mobs: This situation will be much more common when grouping as most of the mobs in the group instances (fallen gate, black burrow, etc) will be as encounters or are sociable and alert other mobs to an attack. The same type of tactic is still applicable from above depending on the level/number of the mobs being pulled. If you find you are scrambling to keep everyone, particularly your tank healed, then start piling on the reactives. They do stack! That is the wonderful thing about reactive heals. I usually start out by throwing on the group reactive before the tank makes his pull if possible. After I am sure he has control (2-3 seconds into battle), then I will throw the individual reactive on him. This is usually enough to keep him maxed out. <o:p></o:p>
If the mobs are attacking other group members, the group reactive will help keep them up while you concentrate on healing as fast as you can. <o:p></o:p>
This works especially well if your tank (or anyone else getting beat on) is getting really low on health. Throw both reactives on him and watch his health go up as he is taking damage! That is the wonderful thing about reactives. But do be careful! The reactives do run out and you need to be ready with more healing.<o:p></o:p>
If you find that you are pulling too much agro by using reactives, do not put one on the tank before the fight. Wait a few seconds (2-4) before throwing the reactive on him. That should help to minimize the amount of agro you pull. But this could also mean you will be scrambling to catch up on heals.

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A word on Buffs:

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Most of your individual buffs will go on your tank. Simple. All of your group buffs should always be up. A few of the individual buffs can be cast on multiple people, just make sure your tank gets them first.Two Healers in the Group:<o:p></o:p>
This is nice. It means you work less! If there are two pure healers in the group (another Templar or an Inquisitor), then the higher of the two casts the reactives and the lower does the direct heals. The higher concentrates on the tank and the squishy (usually a wizzy or lock) taking the most damage, while the lower concentrates on everyone else.<o:p></o:p>
If the other healer is a druid or shaman (Fury, Warden, Mystic), then you do all the major healing and they can concentrate on whatever they do best and only lend a hand when things get bad.<o:p></o:p>
The key here is communication. Otherwise, you run the risk of you both trying to cover everything and both of you running out of power.

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Communication

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This is a little talked about subject, but one that is particularly important for the healer. Being a reactive healer, you will often pull unintended agro off your tank. As you get higher and take part in higher level groups, this will happen less often, but while you are young, this will happen too often.<o:p></o:p>
You will need to set a priority list up in your head. First is your tank. This is the most important person besides you in the group. If the tank dies, there is good chance the rest of the group is going down. If it comes down to healing the tank or someone else, always go for the tank. You have a spell that will give everyone an item to use to revive you if you die. If you make sure the tank survives, then he can revive you if you happen to perish. The tank can take all the agro off of you if you pull it. None of the dps classes get taunts anywhere near as good as the tank- translation, if something attacks you and the tank is down, you are probably going down too. Squishies be damned. They should know what they are in for. <o:p></o:p>
First, you need to let your group, your tank especially, know that you are a reactive healer and that you will be using a lot of reactive heals. They need to be ready to pull the mobs off you if you happen to pull agro. This is important if your tank is a paladin or a skeletal knight or one of the dps classes if you don’t have a tank (like a swashy or brigand).<o:p></o:p>
If you pull an add or one of the encounter off the tank, don’t expect them to notice. They should, but sometimes they get wrapped up in the fight. Take the mob over to them and let them know they need to take it off of you. I find a simply stated “ouch” or “owwie” usually does the trick. DO NOT run around in circles trying to lose it. You run the chance of pulling more adds and the tank may not be able to get a hold of the mob.<o:p></o:p>
It will be important for your group to know when you are out of power. Most people just throw out a simple “OOM” (out of magic). This way they will now that they need to wrap up the fight before someone dies. They also will not get real mad when no heals are incoming.<o:p></o:p>
You will occasionally get someone in your group who will yell at you for not healing “correctly.” Sometimes they have another healer on a different character. Sometimes they are noobs who don’t understand how healers work. Sometimes they don’t realize that you are healing. Sometimes they are dumb squishies that think you should be concentrating on them instead of the tank.

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Here is a word to the wise: If you are being yelled at, then kindly educate them. If they want to keep pushing it, just quit healing them. You will be in demand as a healer no matter where you go. Eventually they will understand that they cannot be yelling at you.<o:p></o:p>
No one likes to die. But if the group wipes, then you have to start over at the beginning of the zone. If the squishies die, but you survive, then you can rez them and move on.

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Miscellaneous

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Okay, so you have read this and just about anything else you can get your hands on but you still have questions, about spells, equipment, quests, mobs, etc.

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Great resource for just about anything: Main Page - EQ2i<o:p></o:p>
Just type in anything you want to know about in the search and good stuff comes up. Because it is based on player information, there is occasionally some wrong info there, but it is usually fixed quickly by other people.

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If you get lost a lot while wandering around Norrath, then I would also suggest downloading EQ2 Maps found at eq2maps.com<o:p></o:p>
Good luck! <o:p></o:p>