Templar

Weapon: longsword and shield. Role: main tank — and, per community guides, a party buffer wearing tank armor. Per NC's official showcase it is a sworn guardian who stands firm like a fortress wall, holding the battlefield with an unbreakable shield.

The playstyle is trigger management. Your shield skills open short windows in which Judgment — the payoff skill — fires, and your well-timed blocks fuel the reported Fury damage buff for the whole party. Pick the Templar if you like setting the pace of a fight, controlling enemy facing, and being the first name groups look for; skip it if you need to top a damage meter.

• The roster's dedicated main tank — highest survivability and constant dungeon demand
• Real threat tools: a reported Taunt stigma plus Enmity scaling baked into core attacks
• Protects the whole party, not just itself — barriers, a party damage-tolerance buff and a block-triggered damage buff are all in the reported kit
• More offense than the classic tank: community guides build Templar damage-first because defense comes free

• Lowest personal damage in the game — its job is to enable kills, not race the DPS meter
• Gear-check sensitive: an under-geared Templar feels every item-level gap before anyone else does
• Melee with limited ranged tools — community PvP guides note melee gets kited, so your hook and gap-closers carry real weight
• Busier than it looks: block timing, trigger windows and buff upkeep are genuine work (community sites rate its difficulty medium)

Community guides describe one central loop: stagger your shield skills so Judgment windows run back to back, and block deliberately so your procs keep firing. Burn every opener at once and the class goes quiet; stagger the triggers and it never stops.

1. Pull the target in — Poach at range, or walk up and open with a charged Punishment (stage 3 on elites)
2. Open a Judgment window with Shield Smite or Warding Strike, then spam Judgment inside it
3. Fill between windows with Pummel; hold Vicious Strike for when MP runs low
4. Block deliberately — a blocked hit reportedly procs Fury (a party damage buff) and unlocks Debilitating Smash
5. On stunned or knocked-down targets, cash in with Annihilate
6. Hold Defiance for the hard crowd control that would drop you

Packs are where the shield shines: group the mobs on you, let blocks trigger your procs, and knock the pile down with Annihilate. Community guides macro the shield line and the Pummel line onto separate slots and simply hold basic attack between them.

The group's defensive anchor — and, per community guides, a party buffer too. Dungeon finder runs on you: the Templar is the role five-player parties look for first, and every reported endgame composition assumes one.

• Dungeon job: open with Taunt, face the boss away from the party, hold Enmity, and drop barriers before telegraphed heavy hits
• Positioning: frontal to the boss — blocking needs facing, and community guides report Enmity scales on front attacks
• Synergy: your Fury buff reportedly does not stack with the Gladiator's Experienced Counterstrike — talk to your off-tank about who buffs
• PvP groups: Comrade in Arms is the reported pick for redirecting damage away from your backline

Leveling a Templar is safe and steady rather than fast: you rarely die, and you rarely burst. Community guides spend skill points on damage precisely because survivability needs no help — and the main story remains your spine either way.

• First points into Vicious Strike and Pummel; community guides alternate them on one macro
• Reported spike levels: Judgment's level 16 cooldown removal, Fury to 10, and amulet then weapon to +10 around 17 — community guides report enhancement cannot fail up to +10
• Stigma order while leveling (community): Doom Shield, then Battlefield Banner, then Taunt, then Empyrean Lord's Punishment; slots open at 22 / 27 / 32 / 37
• Take the reported cooldown-reset-on-kill specialization around level 8 to keep the loop moving
• Charge Punishment to stage 3 when opening on elite mobs

In PvP the Templar turns disruptor: hooks, stuns, defense shreds and a healing debuff, per community guides — a frontline problem the enemy has to solve before it can reach your backline. Same honest caveat as every class page: Global Season 1 is weeks old, balance patches arrive often, and there is no settled meta yet. Everything below is Unconfirmed.

• Reported 1v1 stigma set: Executing Blade, Empyrean Lord's Punishment, Doom Shield, Nezekan's Shield — named by both community sources we cross-referenced
• The pick combo: Poach hooks a target in, Empyrean Lord's Punishment reportedly adds a stun chance, and Annihilate cashes in on the crowd control
• Debilitating Smash's reported healing reduction makes you painful for healers to out-sustain
• Second Skin is the community's reported anti-magic swap; Comrade in Arms covers group PvP
• Melee gets kited — community guides say your hook and gap-closers matter more in PvP than in PvE