Templars are a Bit Weak – XCOM 2

Compared to the other heroes they aren’t that great IMO. thoughts? seems like they only get strong after colonel rank, whereas skirmisher and reaper get far more kills overall in the course of a game.

Answer

Except that’s super untrue because of Ionic Storm being a pod-wiper and the Ghost of a Bladestorm templar providing both focus-free bladestorm reacts and a fully-charged ionic storm. They are, IMO, one of the strongest units in the game, comparable only to Reapers, a Sharpshooter with the Hunter’s ridiculously OP rifle, a double-tree ranger with the assassin’s AP sword and shotgun, and… yeah that’s about it.

Their one-shot invincibility (which can be increased substantially when you get deflect and reflect) becomes a meme, allowing them to solo pods without even using any of their abilities as long as you have bladestorm. They START with a better version of one of the ranger’s best skills – implacable – and they get a better version of one of the ranger’s other best skills, untouchable. What more could you possibly ask? I started a legendary playthrough with a templar and it made the whole thing into a joke, and the best part is that he was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ templar! He didn’t have bladestorm (the most important skill), Fortress (slightly less important) or even Reaper! (I don’t really like reaper but I’ll accept it), but he still kicked♥♥♥♥♥

Consider it this way: The Templar provides

1. Guaranteed damage. His melee attack will never, ever miss. Not even on bladestorm (overwatch) attacks. Guaranteed damage in a game dominated by layer upon layer of honestly off-putting RNG is automatically insanely good. It’s why you bother to field Grendiers when they have the accuracy of a blindfolded child swinging away at a wall he thinks is a pinata. It’s why anyone with even the slightest bit of sense takes combat protocol over the garbage that is healing protocol.
2. Guaranteed avoidance of damage. He can take any one hit after attackin. ANY one hit. Leave him out of cover, put everyone else in cover and when you’re fighting a pod, focus down all the weak units on the pod. Leave the strongest one alive (unless it’s a sectopod), because you don’t have to worry about it. It’s going attack your completely helpless, vulnerable, meaty, flanked templar. *Sarcasm*. The templar can completely nullify any one unit on the enemy team just by existing, and it can also one-shot a lot of enemies even at endgame legendary difficulty.
3. Big damage, big AOEs. Ionic storm is insane, Ghost can help you double down on your AOEs and the waves from the rend attack have their damage determined as a function of your focus (I think it was 2+ your current focus, or 2x your current focus, not sure though). On top of destroying cover, when comboed with Reaper you can, again, wipe out an entire pod as long as you use a grenade to soften it up a little. As well as that, the Reaper chain will give you Focus you can use on a final attack that will NOT have its damage reduced by Reaper (I.e Ionic Storm, Volt, Ghost, Invert, Amplify, etc.)

And there’s more. I just can’t believe you would say they’re weak when you’re comparing them to the abject garbage that is the Skirmisher, the wanna-be ranger with the low damage whose best possible skill is tactical rigging, so that he can get used to his role of throwing mimic beacons while the rest of the team is killing aliens.

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