Templar PVP Questions

Zaed

I'm a soon-to-be probable IRE Retiree and I was looking to RP a Templar character. I had a few questions about their PVP.

1.) Are all weapon masteries equally viable? Am I safe choosing for RP or is there one I'll want to use more than the others?

2.) I read something to the effect that automated offenses are very common here in PVP. To what degree are they automated? Is this something that most upper tier PVPers have to do?

Antehe

The masteries each have different applications, and while useful, some are more common in PvP than others.

The nice thing with mastery is that you can change it once every hour, so you can explore both roleplay as well as whatever is most viable for your preferred PVP avenue.

It is worth noting that the masteries are also grouped by (majority) weapon family, so as an example:
Small Blade masteries
* Poise : Reduced penalty for striking shield.
* Conservation : Your swings cost less endurance.
* Opportunizing: Attacks penetrate armour if your target is prone.
* Serration : Attacks cause additional bleeding.
* Overpowering : Slight chance for a minor critical strike.
* Grace : You can avoid rebounded attacks.

Can be paired with: Battleaxe, Broadsword, Falchion / Falcata, Flyssa, Longsword, Rapier, Sarissa, Scimitar, Shortsword, Spear, Trident.
Some of the forging weapon family items are excluded from Templar's skills (to note: Templar masteries/skills are not compatable with whips, daggers, dirks, stilletos, mauls, bardiches, and halberds). With the way forging works, each of those weapons is as mechanically interchangeable/viable as the other (longswords, rapiers, and spears can be just as fast or as damaging as each other, etc).

I will let our combatants speak more of systems.

Valingar

1. Templars can change both their weapon mastery and weapon talent at no cost, though at a 60 minute cooldown, so if you end up regretting yours, you can change it fairly paintlessly. But it was covered above at more length, so on to affliction routes:

The affliction route, which is unarguably the bread and butter of Templar PvP, needs you to be wielding two one-handed edged (envenomable) weapons. Bashing usually involves a two-handed weapon. There is also a mostly unutilized limb route open to Templar that usually involves two blunt weapons, sometimes combined with a two-hander for the finishing parts. I personally prefer Serration (increased bleeding damage) talent, but they're largely a matter of taste.

2. Affliction routes and classes generally require precise tracking and automation tends to be necessary to at least some extent, because it's very hard for the human brain to make all the right decisions at the speed combat can go and then type them in. I don't buy the horror stories about full automation where the PKers do nothing to adjust their fighting, however, and let a computer handle everything. Some do do this, mind, but they're midtier fighters at best. You could hand Serrice's, or Lim's, or Ezalor's, or Eliadon's, or Varel's, or Draiman's, or any number of capable combatants offenses to someone not as good as they are, and watch them fail miserably.

Limb routes and classes can be a bit more forgiving in terms of tracking, if you're sharp at watching what your opponent cures, and I don't automate my limb classes.

On a final note, I heard (never used it, so I'm not entirely sure) that Source, the most common free system, has some kind of affliction tracking built in already, so I'd check that out if I was you.

Eliadon

Automation for defense is usually accomplished via some active changes to the built in first aid system, HELP FIRSTAID will point you in the right direction.

Automated offense.. depends on what you're going for. Some classes are easier to play entirely manually (Monk, Zealot). Others can be done efficiently partially automated (mages, a bunch of others). Full automation is usually unreasonable, as there are a lot of situations you need to account for.

Templar you probably want some bit of automation for picking your venoms/empowerments, at least.

Edit: Valingar beat me to it!