Templar

At a glance

1. Judgment is your damage. It only fires for a few seconds after a shield skill (Shield Smite, Warding Strike, Shield Rush, Doom Shield); rank 16 removes its cooldown.
2. Keep Executor up. Punishment (charged, 30 s) gives +200 Accuracy and +20% PvE damage for 20 s; Pummel's rank-12 option cuts Punishment's cooldown by 1 s per hit, which keeps it nearly permanent.
3. Skill points stop at rank 10. Daevanion adds +4 (14 total); rank 16 needs ring lines and Arcana too.
4. Priority: Judgment, Punishment and Pummel to 20; Vicious Strike to 16–20; Warding Strike to 16.
5. Stigmas: Taunt, Empyrean Lord's Punishment, Battlefield Banner, Doom Shield (Shield of Protection for new or hard fights).
6. Macro: Judgment, Shield Smite, Warding Strike, Debilitating Smash, Annihilate, Pummel, with Vicious Strike held on left mouse; Pummel keeps its default right-mouse slot.
7. Threat: open with Poach or Doom Shield, then Taunt; Insulting Roar doubles your Enmity. Build threat hard in the first 5 seconds.
8. Passives: Fury and Punishing Benediction to 10, then Insulting Roar, Ironclad Defense and Enhance Health.
9. Gear: Block, Defense and HP keep you alive, but damage limits a Templar more than survival; roll Attack and Crit where the slot allows, and skill lines on the rings.
10. Spend what is closest to its cap first: Shugo keys (3 a day, cap 12) and Odyle Energy.
11. Use only the game's built-in macro. Mouse macros and third-party tools get accounts banned.

Where the Templar stands

• Global standing: shugo.gg rates it S for PvE (Oct 11), "the tank every party needs"; metabot S for group PvE; MeinMMO rates Templar tanking S (Oct 13). Korea and Taiwan rate it A, still the tank of choice after the Aug 26 buff cuts.
• Global Combat Power (Nov 7): the Templar has the highest global median of the six guide classes (134K, metabot Nov 4), partly because Defense counts toward CP.
• Damage (Korean meter, Oct 20): median 994K for all players (2nd of 9), 1.04M at 400K+ combat power (3rd) and 1.34M at 600K+ (5th, against 1.79M for the Assassin). The Korean brackets use Korean combat power (the top-80 Korean median is about 1.12M against 268K on global), so read them as a ranking.
• What a party wants: Fury (+10% party PvE damage for 20 s on Block at rank 10), Taunt's Shrink (−10% target PvE tolerance at rank 5), Debilitating Smash (−25% Defense), Nezekan's Shield (a party shield worth 41–65% of Max HP), Empyrean Lord's Punishment (50 stagger) and two pulls.
• Weaknesses: damage rated 2 of 5, slow solo farming, and short MP at a fresh level 45. Templars are about 10% of the global top 1,000 by combat power (Oct 6).
• Weapon: a longsword with a guard in the off hand (not a greatsword).

Current patch: what has changed

Global: the Oct 5 launch, Oct 7, 9 and 14 patches list no Templar changes; the global client already has Korea's Sep 23 state (Warding Strike 30 s, Executor 20 s, Shield Smite usable while moving). Korea's Oct 7 patch raised skill presets from 3 to 5; global timing is unknown. The Oct 21 patch (Oct 20 PDT) lists no Templar changes. It added Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600 item level) and a new Ariel Daevanion board (see Gear score milestones), raised the Abyss player cap and Abyss boss HP, and fixed title effects that didn't match their tooltips. The Oct 28 patch (Oct 27 PDT) raised the Templar's base HP at 45 from 4,702 to 6,202, cut boss Attack and HP in Expedition and Transcendence, added Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700) and raised crafted gear's Amplify caps. The Nov 4 patch (Nov 3 PST) opened Abyssal Forge: Ludra, made Draupnir, Vakron and Horn Den Exploration pay like Conquest, added always-succeed True and Star Dragon recipes, pet souls from Expedition and Transcendence, and Chaotic Outer Reshanta (PvP with equalised stats); no class changes.

Level-by-level checklist

Follow the yellow main-story quests to 45; they pay 97–99% of the EXP. Each sealed dungeon clear also gives 2 Daevanion points, 2 skill points, 15,000 Kinah and 1,250 Enhance Stones. Levels 30–39 are slow, so fill the gap with sealed dungeons.

The last column is the highest rank you can buy by the end of each band. A skill learned by level 17 gains a rank every 3 levels (rank 8 at unlock level + 18, rank 10 at + 24); skills learned at 21 or later have no gate.

Leveling extras: don't open the Journal Duty tab before level 45 (a launch bug delays Duty content until the day after you reach 45); collect 40 feathers early (120 shards) for an amulet upgrade; clear hideouts at levels 15, 20 and 25; at the cap, do the Shugo activities and a map sweep. Play in Tab Target mode: auto-attacks between skills add hits and threat.

Leveling playbook. Packs: Poach (its rank-8 option resets it on a kill), Warding Strike, then hold Vicious Strike with the macro. Elites: a charged Punishment, then Shield Smite, Judgment and Annihilate. Take the weapon to about +10 while leveling.

After 45, in order:

1. Regional quests (accessory and rune slots).
2. Every remaining sealed dungeon.
3. Strongholds (Noble Belt scrolls).
4. Conquest, gated by total item level: Krao Cave and Draupnir at 700, Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island at 1,400, Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den at 2,100. Run the highest you qualify for.
5. Transcendence from item level 1,600 (stages to 2,500) for Arcana; see Transcendence dungeons for which one to farm.
6. Nightmare (Pantheon fragments) and Abyss (stigma shards, Daevanion resources).
7. The Ludra raid (Abyssal Forge: Ludra, open since Nov 4) needs 2,800 item level for Normal and 3,000 for Hard; until then, the top steps are Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600) and Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700).

How skills level up (and how to reach 16)

Skill points only buy ranks 1–10 (13 points to rank 8, 21 to rank 10). Everything above comes from the sources below.

Daevanion alone reaches 14, never 16. Rank 16 needs two more levels from rings or Arcana. No global skill cap is published (client tables run to 40): the theoretical ceiling for an active is 10 points + 4 Daevanion + 4 gear + 8 Arcana = 26, and the Ariel board adds no ranks. Top global players average 14–17 on their main skills.

Rank 16's real value is the specializations (Judgment's cooldown removal, Punishment ignoring Block); the extra damage per rank is smaller than the jump from rank 8 to 10.

Priority:

1. Skill nodes for core skills on every board (12 points per active for +4).
2. Core skill lines on both rings.
3. Parchment lines on Judgment or Punishment, Compass lines on Pummel.
4. Stop at rank 8 on skills where you only want one specialization.
5. Treat 12 and 16 as breakpoints; 13 or 15 isn't worth chasing.

Point budget. Maxing every active and passive to rank 10 costs about 460, so spend in this order (cheap early ranks first, ranks 9–10 last):

Rows 1–7 fit inside the 203 points from levels alone; the rest come from sealed-dungeon and regional-quest points.

Active skills

The last column is the share of top Korean Templars with the skill at rank 16 or higher, then 20 or higher; in brackets, the global top-150 average rank.

Specializations

You have three slots, which open at rank 8, 12 and 20. Each option has its own minimum rank (8, 12 or 16), so at rank 16 you fill two slots from options up to 16.

Guides number options differently; read the tooltip.

Passives

Each rank adds the same amount, but ranks 9–10 cost 4 points each, so take the key passives to 8 first and Fury and Punishing Benediction to 10 later. Community builds (_leonis, xia_qingyue) order them Fury, Insulting Roar, Impact Hit, Punishing Benediction, then Ironclad Defense or Enhance Health. Target is the rank to buy with points; fillers get ranks 2–4 (1 point each) only if points are spare.

Stigmas

Global has four slots (22, 27, 32, 37) and stigmas level to 20; Korea has five slots (since Mar 25; one seller site reports six after Chapter 1) and goes to 25. The rank 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 bonuses unlock on their own.

• Global top players: Taunt 76%, Empyrean Lord's Punishment 67%, Battlefield Banner 65%, Doom Shield 61%, Shield of Protection 61%, Noble Armor 37%, Nezekan's Shield 24%, Executing Blade 19%.
• Upgrade order (sources split): one global guide puts 1 point in each, then Empyrean Lord's Punishment and Banner to 5, then those two and Doom Shield to 15, and leaves Taunt at 5; metabot starts with Taunt. Comrade in Arms replaces Doom Shield when you need survival. November community builds (11) instead run Battlefield Banner 20 (11 of 11), Noble Armor 15+ (11 of 11) and Taunt (10 of 11; 20 in four), plus Shield of Protection (6) or Empyrean Lord's Punishment (3) for Stagger fights; _leonis's order is Noble Armor 15, Banner 10, Shield 10, Taunt 5, Banner 20, Taunt 20, Shield 20.
• Korean rates (owned at 20+, PvE): Taunt 89%, Battlefield Banner 89%, Shield of Protection 88%, Doom Shield 85%, Empyrean Lord's Punishment 78%. Stigma Shards: Abyss shop (200), Nightmare shop (52,500 fragments for 35), Shugo shop (10,500 tokens for 35).

Rotation and macro

Set up: most-liked community builds now put the macro skills in one or two stacks and run a 1–2 step macro over them, held with left mouse; a macro step presses a whole slot (see Community builds for this class's stacks). The per-slot layout below is the simpler fallback: give every macro skill its own hotbar slot first (see Hotbar setup). Then open the Skill menu (K) → Macros → Add Macro, add the skills in the order shown, and bind the macro key under Settings → Key Settings → General → Gameplay → Macro. Bind it to a side mouse button and hold it together with left mouse, so right mouse keeps the bar's last slot (see Hotbar setup). Use 10 ms between steps and turn on Skill Queue.

• Opener: Poach or Doom Shield onto the boss, Taunt, Battlefield Banner, a charged Punishment for Executor, then the macro. Recast Punishment before Executor's 20 s run out.
• Doom Shield: one global guide puts it first in the macro (about 20% more damage on a dummy, since it opens Judgment and resets Annihilate at rank 5); keep it by hand if you need it to reposition.
• Defensive cooldowns: spread them across telegraphed hits rather than stacking them. Shield of Protection (guaranteed Block) on the biggest hit, Warding Strike's +20% tolerance in between, Nezekan's Shield for raid-wide damage. Guarding Seal and Block Pain fire on their own.
• Block feeds everything: each Block triggers Fury (1 s internal cooldown), Warding Shield's heal (3 s) and Debilitating Smash's −25% Defense. Hold aggro in front of the boss so your party hits its back.
• Mana: alternate Vicious Strike (restores MP) with Pummel (spends it); Vicious Strike's +20% MP option helps at a fresh 45.
• Use the game's built-in macro only.

Hotbar setup

• Left mouse: Vicious Strike, held together with the macro key. Right mouse (RMB): Pummel, the Templar's default right-mouse skill and the macro's last step (inferred from the class's level-1 skills; check your own bar).
• Q: Punishment (charged, so it stays out of the macro). E (threat): Taunt, then Poach; press it twice to taunt and pull.
• Buff key 1: Battlefield Banner. 2: Empyrean Lord's Punishment, saved for stagger checks. 3 (rushes): Doom Shield, then Shield Rush after a Dodge.
• Macro slots 4–8 and RMB, in step order: Judgment, Shield Smite, Warding Strike, Debilitating Smash, Annihilate, Pummel.
• Swap-ins: Shield of Protection, Nezekan's Shield, Noble Armor and Comrade in Arms are optional stigmas; give the one you equip its own key. Flash Rampage is skipped.
• Reach: hand-pressed skills take the keys closest to WASD (Q, E, then 1–3) and the macro steps take the far ones, since the macro presses those for you. Put the most time-critical skills (taunts, defensives) on Q and E.
• Defiance can't be slotted: the stun break fires with Space, so it never needs a bar slot.
• Stacking: a slot holds up to four skills. A press fires the lowest one that is ready; if it is on cooldown or its condition isn't met, it falls to the next one up. Put cooldown and conditional skills at the bottom and spam skills on top.
• Stacks and macros: a macro step presses a whole slot, so a step on a stacked slot fires that stack's first ready skill. Top community builds put the macro skills in one stack (usually right mouse) and hold it with left mouse, or run a 1–3 step macro over stacks; see Community builds, and test it on a dummy.
• Keep out of the macro: charged skills (Punishment), taunts and pulls, and defensive or emergency skills.
• Slots: the bar has 12. The last four are Q, E, left mouse (LMB) and right mouse (RMB). Every class starts with its basic attack on LMB and a second skill on RMB (T is RMB's keyboard key). Put the macro on a side mouse button so RMB keeps that skill; binding the macro to right mouse pushes the slot onto T. Rebind slots under Settings → Key Settings → Quickslot, and treat this layout as a suggestion.

Daevanion boards

Buy the blue nodes for Judgment, Punishment, Pummel, Vicious Strike and Warding Strike first (that gets you to rank 14), then the orange corners, then the green passives, routing through Attack and Crit greys. Costs: grey 1, green 2, blue 3, orange 4; each node must touch one you own. Percentages are top-150 global Templar pick rates.

metabot's editorial text starts Nezekan with the Enhance Health, Ironclad Defense and Guarding Seal pairs, but its own top-player data favours the actives and corners above.

Recommended board setups

Numbered nodes are phase 1: buy them in that order, starting next to the center star. Outlined nodes are phase 2. Faded nodes with a red X are skips; a dimmed node without an X is only a connector. Global corners give +1.5% each.

Layouts are from the metabot global planner. The four PvE boards hold 570 points; this plan spends 336 of them (phase 1: 245, phase 2: 91), which leaves about 80 of the roughly 416 you can earn for extra Attack, Crit, HP or Defense greys. Crystals come from leveling (~136), sealed dungeons (~122), regional quests (~58) and the Shugo and Nightmare shops (50 each per character).

Ariel board (added Oct 21): a sixth board whose points come only from Daevanion Crystal: Ariel, morphed from Ariel Fragments from all four Hard Expeditions (Krao Cave and Draupnir at 2,600; guaranteed in Urugugu Canyon and Vakron at 2,700); 100 fragments make one crystal (+1 gear score). Cap: 30 per character in the patch text, 30 per dungeon (120) per two community guides. Layout: 152 nodes and 232 points, with PvE Damage Boost and PvE Damage Tolerance cores, smaller PvE stat nodes and no skill nodes; nobody can fill it yet.

Gear

Block, Defense and HP keep you alive, but a geared Templar is limited more by damage than by survival, so roll Attack and Crit where the slot allows and put Judgment, Punishment and Pummel lines on the rings. Sources disagree on stat order: metabot ranks Block > Defense > HP > Crit Resist > Attack; one global guide wants Block, Evasion and Dexterity early and Block, Endurance and Ironclad Defense late.

• Skill lines: the longsword, guard and rings roll active-skill lines; earrings and necklace roll passives (client data; one guide says the necklace rolls actives).
• Manastones: Block first (it keeps its 10% roll weight even on Abyssal stones), then Defense and HP; top global Templars kept HP 13%, MP 13%, Attack 12%, Crit 12%, Accuracy 10%.
• Accuracy: one guide targets about 900 for Conquest and 1,300 for the raid (unverified); Punishment's Executor adds +200.

Arcana: Parchment rolls Vicious Strike, Poach, Judgment, Debilitating Smash, Annihilate and Punishment; Compass rolls Pummel, Shield Smite, Flash Rampage, Warding Strike, Shield Rush and Defiance; Bell rolls Enhance Health, Punishing Benediction, Guarding Seal, Insulting Roar and Fury; Mirror rolls Warding Shield, Ironclad Defense, Impact Hit, Survival Willpower and Block Pain; Chalice rolls any skill. Chase Parchment for Judgment and Punishment, Compass for Pummel and Shield Smite, Bell for Fury and Punishing Benediction. Sets split: metabot suggests the Magic Armor 4-piece (+1,000 PvE Defense at 50% MP or more) for tanks, one global guide the damage set; endgame Templars on questlog run five Unique +5 cards (Chalice and Parchment of Vigor, Bell of Magic and a Compass for Pummel).

Block, Accuracy and threat

• Block raises your parry and shield-block chance; the attacker's Accuracy cancels Block and Evasion one for one, and Endurance halves the damage when it triggers.
• Taunt's Shrink lowers the boss's Accuracy by 200, which raises your effective Block against it.
• Insulting Roar's +100% Enmity and Pummel's Enmity hold threat; if a damage dealer pulls, Taunt (30 s) and Poach (15 s) are your recoveries.
• Check boss hit patterns in the in-game Combat Analysis.

Gear economy

Gear by item level (level 45). Only item level moves at the cap. This table is per piece; the dungeon gates under "After 45" use your total item level.

• Craft chain: True Dragon Lord (62), Splendent (70), White (78), Splendent (86), Wise (94), Splendent Wise (102). Each step has a 25% chance of the Splendent version. Asmodian names: Star, Dark, Ebony.
• Mastery: True Dragon Lord pieces need crafting mastery 55 or 60, and mastery stops at 50 until you finish the upgrade quest.
• Don't waste: Enhance Stones on Common or Rare gear, or on Legend (blue) pieces you'll replace (the belt and amulet are the exception); Superior manastones on gear you'll replace; restarting a craft (upgrades carry enhancement, amplification and soul binding forward); Abyss Points on Potential, which gives only PvP stats.

Enhancement (Unique gear, max +15). +10 is guaranteed. +11 to +15 succeed 65, 50, 35, 25 and 20%, with +5% after each failure. A failure only costs materials. Expect about 22 attempts, 15M Kinah and 191,000 Enhance Stones to reach +15 on item level 102 gear. Keep the weapon at +10 until you have the final one. Amplified Enhancement comes after +15: its steps succeed 66, 50, 33, 25 and 20% (with pity), and item level caps it at +1 for 54–62, +3 for 70 and +5 for 86 and up. Since Oct 28, crafted Dragon Lord gear has the same caps (True and Star +3, White and Dark +5), and Gear Transfer can move enhancement from Expedition gear onto crafted gear.

Soul binding (Unique gear only). It unlocks random stats and makes the item untradeable. The first step costs 30,000 Kinah and 10 Soul Codex, the tenth 632,000 Kinah and 102 Soul Codex. Rebinding costs 300,000 Kinah and 3 Soul Codex.

Manastones. Slots by grade: Common 1, Rare 2, Legend (blue) 3, Unique 4 (amulet, belt and rune have none). Jewelry takes Soulstones from the same pools. Engraving fills every slot at once for 500–2,000 Kinah by gear grade and can't fail, and each line adds gear score (+1 grey to +4 yellow).

• Attack, Defense, Accuracy, Evasion, Crit and Crit Resist each roll about 10% of the time; Combat Speed and cooldown stats can't be rolled.
• Rerolling overwrites the old stat and consumes the stone. Enhancing keeps stones; dismantling gear destroys them.
• Use regular stones for PvE; Abyssal stones split a third of rolls onto PvP stats.
• Lesser stones drop; Alchemy crafts the rest. 5 Lesser, 3 Spiritstone Powder and 2 Professional Ink make an Intermediate (mastery 20), with a 20% chance of a Superior; the dedicated Superior recipe is 30 Intermediate, 10 Powder and 2 Exceptional Ink at mastery 85.

Theostones (Epic and Unique weapons only). A weapon engraving with a chance to proc on attack; identical stones don't stack.

• PvE pick (tank): Lumiel's Interference (−50% target Combat Speed; Rare version Notun's Craft, Epic Io's Sadness), the only proc that slows how fast a boss attacks. PvP: Nezekan's March (Root).
• How to get them: the 3 regional quests per faction (Rare chest plus 100,000 Kinah each), the Abyss Trade Shop Selection Chest (35,000 Abyss Points), the Season Shop (17,500 Oath Coin, limit 10), the Arena shop (1 Arena Token, 5 per week) and Daeva Pass.
• Upgrading: combining gives Rare to Epic 11.1% and Epic to Unique 9.1%; Unique stones come only from combining.

Consumables. Battle Enhance Scroll gives +10% Damage Boost and +10% Damage Tolerance for 5 minutes (quests, achievements and attendance, or the Season Shop for 6,000 Oath Coin, limit 10 per account; the shop closes Dec 16). Courage Scroll gives +10% Combat Speed for 5 minutes (1,000 Kinah). Food is defensive only.

Check your numbers in game. Use the in-game Combat Analysis for parry rates and rotation. Third-party macros and tools risk bans, and I can't confirm third-party meters are safe.

Essence Extraction (gathering)

Essence Extraction is the game's one gathering skill: Ore, Gem, Log, Herb, Cooking Ingredient and Odyle nodes in Verteron, Altgard and Chaotic Lower Reshanta (Odyle also in the Expeditions). It feeds crafting (Dragon Lord gear, manastones) and the Radiant Odyle that unseals dungeon wings. Each node gives two to four extractions; the minigame fills a blue Success gauge against an orange Failure gauge, and your odds improve with use.

• Cap at Novice 50: proficiency stops at level 50 until you finish "[Upgrade] Essence Extraction Specialty Skill" (Korius for Elyos, Alzirr for Asmodians): extract one Splendent Ruby from a Ruby node (Elyos: around the Verteron Fortress Ruins; Asmodians: near Quay Campsite and Calderon Canyon) and hand it in. Professional runs 51–100.
• Fast proficiency: Orichalcum, Raydam, Azpha and Odyle nodes. Odyle sits in the air, and running out of flight stamina cancels the extraction. Since Oct 28, gathering needs level 45 and is capped at 1,000 extractions per server per day.

Points. Every proficiency level gives a Common point (45 by level 50, 95 by level 100). Specialty points come every 10 levels, two at 50, 80, 90 and 100 (6 by level 50, 14 by level 100).

Levels 1–5 cost 1 to 5 points (15 per skill, Novice); levels 6–10 cost 5 each (25 more, Professional).

• Novice: all three to 5, which is exactly the 45 points you have.
• Professional: the 50 extra points max two skills. Take Lady Luck and Proficient Handling to 10 (both fire on successes, and the ×2.5 or ×4 boost likely multiplies Proficient Handling's gain) and keep Delicate Touch at 5; swap it in if failures keep ending your extractions on high-level nodes. This split is my reading of the tooltips; no guide publishes one.

Specialty skills. Every node type has the same tree, 7 points to max: Seeker (1 point, shows that node type on the minimap), Plentiful Harvest (3 levels: 10, 20 or 30% chance of double materials) and Appraiser (3 levels: 10, 20 or 30% chance to reroll to a higher grade; for Cooking Ingredients it rerolls the quantity). Only level 1 of each opens at Novice, and 14 points max two of the six trees.

Check in game whether the points can be reset before you commit.

Gear score milestones

Gear score is the item level shown under your character level, and it gates almost all level-45 content. Climb it in the order below: each bracket lists what opens, what to do and what to skip.

What counts. Every equipped piece's item level, plus +1 per enhancement level, +5 per Amplify level, manastone lines (+1 grey, +2 green, +3 blue, +4 yellow), +1 per Daevanion point spent, +40 per Clash Rune, +3 per Rare Theostone, and Arcana cards (+20 / 40 / 60 / 80 by grade, +1 per card level). Each Ariel crystal adds +1. Soul binding, skill points, Stigmas, titles, pets and Genus Insight, the Pantheon and the closet raise Combat Power only; sources split on whether wings add gear score.

Gates are from the global client data (metabot, Corpus). Some creator videos quote 1,500, 2,200 and 2,700 instead; the client wins.

Combat Power

Combat Power (CP) is the server's own rating and NC hasn't published the formula. It weights attack over defense (Korean estimates: Attack 1.25, Defense 1, secondary stats 0.25, about 100 per 1% stat). Gates check item level only, but party finders ask for CP, and global CP runs about a quarter of Korean CP.

The targets are AionFlex entry CP (the 25th percentile of players who killed the boss, Nov 7). The cheapest CP comes from Stigmas, Daevanion points, titles and Genus Insight, which need no new gear.

Level 45 to 1,000: finish the free gear

• Story and quests: finish the main story and the last Ascension and Abyss quests for the Spiritforged weapon (Unique, 45), guard and bracelet.
• Clash Runes: open both rune chests from the Verteron or Altgard regional quests; at +40 each, two runes alone carried one creator to 1,000.
• Belt and amulet: Stronghold scrolls (2 per home Stronghold) take the Noble Belt to +10, and Monolith Resonance scrolls (one per home Monolith level, so feed it Empyrean Trace feathers) take the Revelation Amulet to +10; enhancing them always succeeds. Then Substance Morph each one (Alt+H → Gear; at +10 and unequipped, always succeeds, returns at +0) from Rare (item 13) to Legend, the blue grade some guides call Epic (item 36, +23 each).
• Spend: every Daevanion point (+1 each), and the Spiritforged weapon to +10 (about 406,000 Kinah and 16,000 Enhance Stones).
• Odyle: bank it for 1,400, where Vakron and Urugugu pay more per point, but never let it reach the 560 cap.

1,000 to 1,400: points, not drops

• Daevanion crystals: clear every sealed dungeon (2 each, +122 total) and the regional quests (+58). Feathers to Monolith level 16 give 36 Azphel crystals, and the Nightmare and Shugo shops sell 50 each (+100).
• Belt and amulet to Unique: take each Legend piece to +10 (+10 gear score each; about 1.58M Kinah and 63,000 Enhance Stones per piece), then Substance Morph it to Unique (item 65, +29 each). Unique also goes to +10 (+10 more each, about 5M Kinah per piece) when Kinah allows.
• Clash Runes to +1, then stop: +1 always succeeds; +2 is 80%, then 66, 50 and 33%, down to 10% at +10, and sources disagree on whether a failure drops a level or destroys the rune.
• Weapon, guard, bracelet to +10, with one grey or green manastone line each. The Spiritforged Guard comes from the Abyss (Forgotten Commander).
• Every Unique piece to +10: enhancing to +10 always succeeds, so finish the +6 and +7 pieces you already wear (+1 gear score per level).
• Fill every manastone slot: gear arrives with open slots (Rare 2, Legend 3, Unique 4; jewelry takes Soulstones). Engraving fills them all at once for 500–2,000 Kinah and can't fail. Grey or green lines (+1 or +2) are enough on pieces you'll replace; Lesser stones drop from named level-45 mobs in your home region and Lower Reshanta, and the Abyss shop sells 50 Lesser Abyssal stones a week (1,000 Abyss Points each). Fifty-odd slots at +2 is over +100.
• Swap leftover quest pieces for item-54 Unique: Draupnir Conquest drops Bakarma armor, and Krao Cave Conquest drops Berk necklace, earrings and rings (and Rupture weapons). Replacing an item-40 piece is +14 before enhancing; the usual weak slots are the helm, pants, necklace, earrings, second ring and a quest bracelet.
• Worked example (a 1,231 Chanter, Oct 15): +6 Unique gloves, boots, cloak and ring, a +7 bracelet, a +0 Legend belt and amulet, item-40 helm, pants, necklace and earrings, and few manastones. Finishing the +10s (+19), belt and amulet to Unique (+78) and green manastones cover the 169 it needed; two or three item-54 swaps add a margin.
• New content: start Ascension Trial (Easy), Subjugation and Arena; this is where parry rates first show up, so check Accuracy (see Accuracy).
• Skip: enhancing item-43 quest gear past +5, Clash Runes past +1, Superior manastones, or anything you'll replace at 1,400.

1,400 to 2,800: the full route

Odyle Energy sets the pace until about 2,500, then Kinah and Enhance Stones. A claim is one cube at 40 Odyle: regeneration pays for about 21 a week, the shop about 20 more (4 per character, 16 per server), and the Odyle Energy Boost mails 4 a day until Nov 10, so farm hardest now.

Times come from published drop rates and one creator's pace (2,500 in two weekly resets with membership; expect four or five without), not measured player data.

• Guaranteed picks: every 21 claims at Vakron and Urugugu, every 28 at Fire Temple and Horn Den. Fire Temple's never offers the weapon (3 vouchers, 2M Kinah and an off-class Enraged Kromede weapon, about 84 claims) and Horn Den's never offers the guard. Since Nov 4, Draupnir, Vakron and Horn Den Exploration pay like Conquest (same guaranteed-pick count, Amplify Stone Fragments, bound crafting materials), but their Kinah shrinks after 40 runs, to 20% from run 71.
• Gear-score math: a one-tier swap (54 → 70 → 86 → 102) is +16 at the same enhancement; +1 per enhancement level, and +10 → +15 costs about 12M Kinah and 130,000 Enhance Stones per item-86 piece for +5; Amplify (after +15) is +5 a level, about 6.3M Kinah and 58 Amplify Stones for three levels; manastone lines are +1 (grey) to +4 (yellow), 64 lines on a full Unique set; Arcana is +20 per grade plus +1 per card level (a full Unique set at +5 is 425).
• Crafting beats farming only for the weapon (about 240M Kinah to item 102, with 5 Soul Binding lines against Kromede's 3). Since Oct 28, Kromede and Nuakum enhancement can move down onto crafted gear, so enhancing them isn't wasted. Since Nov 4, True and Star Dragon gear also has an always-succeed recipe (bound, no Great Success).
• Bracelets stay at item 43 until Ludra; no other source has been found.
• Templar: take the guard before accessory picks: the Vakron Guard (2 vouchers) at 70 and the Nuakum Guard (3 vouchers) at 86. The Enraged Kromede Sword has the highest Accuracy of the item-86 weapons (150).

2,600 and 2,700: Hard Expeditions and the Ariel board

• Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600, Oct 21) and Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700, Oct 28): a 4-minute boss Frenzy timer and 3 revives per player.
• Rewards: a chance at Philosopher's Stone: Revelation (or pick it as the guaranteed reward), every Unique crafting material, Wrathful Mind, Will and Ego, Ariel Fragments (guaranteed at Urugugu and Vakron), more Kinah than Normal, and Expedition Hero Artwork. Hard achievements give Unique skins.
• Claims and checks: 40 Odyle per claim and 60–90 Ariel Fragments per final-boss cube (client data); the guaranteed pick comes after 28 claims per one guide (another says 14 at Krao Cave and Draupnir, 21 at Urugugu). Stagger Berk at about 50% and hide behind rocks for Wave of Fury; stop attacking during Lakshmi's reflection and before Raur's Counterstrike Stance; stack for Auldor's Tempest Strike; at Thamon, red means physical stops and purple magic stops. Entry CP runs 147–151K at 2,600 and 161–163K at 2,700.
• Ariel Fragments: Substance Morph turns 100 into a Daevanion Crystal: Ariel (up to 30 per character in the patch text; one guide reads it as 30 per dungeon) and 1 into 5 Enhance Stones with no limit.
• Ariel board: a new Daevanion board whose points come only from those crystals; 152 nodes and 232 points, with PvE Damage Boost and Tolerance cores and no skill nodes.

2,800 and up: Ludra

• Abyssal Forge: Ludra opened Nov 4: Normal at 2,800 item level, Hard at 3,000, with a 1-hour limit per run; Normal drops the same item types as Hard at lower rates. The first 20 parties per region to clear Hard get titles, and anyone who clears either mode before Nov 24 gets Ludra's Nemesis.
• Drops: Ludra's weapon and guard, Abyssal Bracelets (Amplify up to 3), Sealed Abyssal Waves Wings and Artwork: Abyssal Ludra. Take a Gear Change Voucher as the guaranteed reward: Substance Morph turns one into a weapon selection chest, and 6 Ludra vouchers (or 3 Hard ones) make Ludra's Bracelet (Amplify up to 5); 2 Normal vouchers trade for 1 Hard voucher.
• Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den on Hard are in the client at 2,800 but locked (a Nov 4 hotfix removed the Hard option that briefly showed); the client also lists higher Conquest tiers and Korean raids at 3,500 and 4,300.
• Format: 10 players in two parties of five, 2 revives, and one counted final-boss kill a week (Wednesday reset); the bosses are level 75. As of Nov 7 there were 11 Eternal Ludra kills on Normal and none on Hard.
• Ready gear (community): Kromede weapon and Nuakum guard at +16 to +18, armor +10 to +15; for Hard, desolo targets +16 everywhere, +17 weapons and all 120 Ariel crystals. Parties ask about 175–190K CP for Normal and 200K+ for Hard.
• Reactor: break the auxiliary reactors.
• Rahu and Ketu (split boss): pass Rahu's SOS Bomb on (3 failures wipe the party); on Ketu the tank blocks the jump, face the red side and turn away from the blue, and the crystals give immunity.
• Eternal Ludra: berserk at 10:00; the red tower needs a blocker, then come two Bingo grids, a colour split and the Thunder Zone. The Reactor and Ludra details come from early-access and client data (mobalytics live guides), so expect changes.
• Loot: sites disagree whether the guaranteed voucher comes every 2 or every 4 kills, and a specific Ludra weapon drops at about 0.3–0.6% per kill, so plan on vouchers. A crafted Splendent Wise or Ebony (102) weapon matches a Ludra weapon's Attack at max enhancement with more lines, so the Ludra weapon is the no-craft route and Ludra's Heart and the bracelets are the real upgrades. Ludra Hunt titles have no stats.
• Templar duties: take Eternal Ludra's red tower with Shield of Protection, block Ketu's jump even when another player is marked, and tank Deus stage-4 Judgment stacks away from the melee. kael.vii runs Nezekan's Shield 20 (party shield) with Battlefield Banner 20 for Ludra, and xia_qingyue keeps Empyrean Lord's Punishment 10 on key 2 for Krao Cave and Draupnir Hard Stagger; both builds have 0–5 likes.

Rules for every bracket

• Spend Odyle on the highest tier you can enter, and never let it cap (560, or 840 with membership). Membership reportedly also allows two Odyle injections per Expedition or Transcendence cube (80 Odyle for double rewards) and makes Sanctuary cubes eligible; NC hasn't published global numbers.
• Open every Conquest and Transcendence cube: leaving one unopened burns the shared 10-per-week counter, and at 0 you can't enter until Wednesday's reset.
• Enhancement priority is weapon, guard, bracelet, then the rest; only enhance past +5 on gear you'll keep.
• Belt and amulet morphs are once per character per grade; the 20-per-server weekly cap added Oct 6 covers only turning Sealed Wings into Enhance Stones. Grades run Common, Rare (green), Legend (blue; some guides say Epic), Unique (gold).

Templar at each bracket. At 1,000, the Spiritforged Longsword and guard go to +10 first. At 1,400, Vakron armor and guard (item 70) and an Aulamus Longsword from Urugugu Canyon; put Judgment, Punishment and Pummel lines on the rings. At 1,600, a Parchment for Judgment or Punishment and a Compass for Pummel come first. At 2,100, the Enraged Kromede Sword from Fire Temple and Nuakum armor and guard from Ferocious Horn Den.

Transcendence dungeons

Season 1 (to Dec 16) has two Transcendence dungeons: Deus Research Base drops Bell, Compass and Chalice cards, and Shattered Arkanis drops Mirror, Parchment and Chalice. Farm the one whose card slots your build still needs; for the Templar, start with Shattered Arkanis.

Best dungeon by class:

• Rewards: entry is free; taking the cube spends a reward count (1 per 12 hours, cap 14) and 40 Odyle. Every cube costs the same, so spend counts on the highest stage your group clears reliably.
• Sets don't decide the dungeon: both drop Vigor and Magic cards; the card slot does. The version you keep decides your Empyrean Lord stat (see Empyrean Lord stats and Pantheon). Duplicates extract into Mysterious Crystals, and 5 crystals and 2M Kinah transmute a Unique card of your choice.
• Party: 2–5 players; a player who leaves mid-run fails the dungeon for everyone. AionFlex entry Combat Power (25th percentile of players who killed the boss, Nov 7) is 80–81K at stage 1, 91K at 2, 109–110K at 3 and 134K at 4; most uploads predate the Oct 28 nerf, so post-nerf needs are slightly lower.
• Oct 28 boss nerf: stage 1 boss Attack −15%, stages 2–4 boss Attack and Damage Boost −10%, stages 1–2 boss HP −6.5%; base HP rose at the same time.
• Coming: the launch leaderboard closed Nov 2, with winners due Nov 9 and mail rewards by Nov 16 (top 10 per server and class: 35,000 Enhance Stones, 30 Unique Amplify Stones and a Philosopher's Stone: Revelation); Season 2 (Dec 16) adds Submerged Life Temple (client data).

Class fit uses AionFlex meter uploads from before the Oct 28 nerf; the damage gaps between dungeons are about 5%, so treat them as a lean, not a rule.

Wings and collection

Worn wings add stats; every pair you own adds a second bonus that grows to +10, even while you wear another. Pairs come in Elyos and Asmodian versions.

Ultimate Daeva Wings are free from the level-45 Ascension quest. The six dungeon-drop wings are Unique items from normal party dungeons, gated by your total item level for Conquest (700 for Krao Cave and Draupnir, 1,400 for Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island, 2,100 for Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den). They drop sealed and unseal with Radiant Odyle, and the drop is rare.

Wing ladder. Wear the best pair you own and keep every pair, because owned bonuses stack even while another pair is worn. The Daeva quest levels (22, 32, 45) come from a single guide, so check your quest log.

The item levels are your total, not a piece's, and match the Conquest gates under "After 45".

Which to wear (Templar). metabot has no Templar wing sample; questlog Templars wear Dark Veil (5 of 8), and the October armory showed Ultimate Daeva most. Plan: Ultimate Daeva at 45 (free), Forest Spirit (Damage Tolerance, Defense and Boss Attack, the tank pick) at 1,400, Dark Veil at 2,100, then Abyssal Waves (PvE Damage Tolerance +3.5%) from Ludra at 2,800+; Talisra is the alternative. Collect the rest as you go, because the owned bonuses stack.

Upgrading. Rare and Epic always succeed to +10. Unique is safe to +3, then 90, 80, 50, 50, 50, 40 and 30% to +10 (about 16.7M Kinah, 137 Sync Stones and 66,000 Enhance Stones). Enhancing never changes worn stats, and Unique wings gain only Flight Power from it; each failure adds +10% to the next try. Collect pairs before enhancing, and enhance only the Epic and Rare pairs whose owned stat grows (for example Spirit Wings' PvE Defense).

Titles. You have three equip slots, one each for Attack, Defense and Other, and a title only fits its own slot. Every title you own also adds a collection bonus (check your Title tab). Fill each slot with the best title you own and swap up as you progress. Top global Templars run Guardian of Altgard or Verteron (Attack), Saint of Altgard or Verteron (Defense) and Through Hell and Back (Other); Rule All Creation is the tank alternative in Defense:

Asmodian counterparts (Guardian of Altgard and others) have the same stats; I only checked the Elyos quest names. The guide I read doesn't state the slot for Hello There or the Sightseer title; I placed them in Defense by their stats. Some titles also pay just for owning them: Unbound by Genus, Dominator of Dimensions and Hero's Footsteps each add +1% PvE Damage Boost or Tolerance.

Pets and Genus Insight

Genus Insight rerolls pet stats; Owned Effects grow with how many pets you own. No pet is mandatory.

• Pet: pick a Fera pet (Fossa, Armadon or Tog) from the level 10 quest; only Fera adds ground mount speed. Five souls unlock a pet; level 2 takes 25 more and level 3 (the cap) 75 more, about 105 per pet. Each pet adds 500/250/250 Insight EXP (failed rolls add EXP too), and Genus Insight is shared by every character on the server.
• Stat priority: Double Chance (on global it rolls only in the Special board's slot 4; the 'levels 3 and 9' advice is Korean or Taiwanese data), Attack Bonus, Boss Attack, Accuracy, HP, Defense. Top global Templars use Pagati (42%).
• Slot 4: Cogni = Damage Boost (most questlog builds; PvE Damage Boost also works), Fera = Weapon Damage Boost, Natura = PvE Damage Boost (Perfect Chance or Multi-hit as fallbacks), Varian = Front or Back Attack Damage Boost, Special = Double Chance.
• Other slots: 1 and 5 Max Attack; 2 and 8 HP; 3, 6 and 9 Accuracy; 7 Damage Tolerance or Endurance.
• Rolling: each roll costs 4 Soul Crystals and 1,000 Kinah; at Insight 10 a roll is Heroic 5% and Unique 15%, so a Heroic Double Chance is about 0.4% per roll. Level all five boards to 9–10 on unlocked rolls, roll Special first with rainbow crystals, and lock only slot 4 (and 7 for tanks); each lock raises the cost.
• Soul Crystals: Substance Morph (1 per 500 Kinah, 1,000 a week), the Festival shop (100 per 50 tokens, 30 a month), pet milestones (100 every 10 pets), Hidden Cubes, the Odylium Repository and the Ludra check-in (3,000). Pet souls drop in Expedition and Transcendence dungeons since Nov 4.

Empyrean Lord stats and Pantheon

For the Templar: Time, then Destruction (Justice if you main-tank), Life, Wisdom, and Death or Freedom. Each point adds 0.1% to both of its stat's effects on global (Korea doubled it to 0.2%, and some sites show the Korean rate). You can't spend or reset these points: they come from items, and almost all of the difference between players comes from which version of each Arcana card you run.

• Arcana is the real choice. Each slot has a Vigor and a Magic version with a fixed stat (+20 at Unique, +1 per card level, so +25 at +5). Skill lines belong to the slot, not the version, so the version only changes the stat and the set bonus. Top Templars run Chalice of Vigor (87% of top Templars), Parchment of Vigor (65%), Mirror of Magic (61%), Bell of Magic (65%) or Bell of Vigor (35%, the most of any class) for main tanks; the Compass is a coin flip (52% Magic, 48% Vigor; questlog 4 Vigor to 3 Magic): pick Vigor while short on Accuracy, Magic once parries are gone. Main tanks trade Destruction for Justice by running Bell of Vigor.
• Sets: most top players run three Vigor and two Magic cards for both 2-piece bonuses (Primal Vigor +60 PvE Attack at 70% HP or more; Magic Armor restores 1,500 MP at 20% MP or less); only 32 of 144 run four Vigor cards.
• Colossus: take the Justice, Time and Destruction one: Zikel's Apparition (14,000 Phantasmal Fragments, +45 each; 140 of 144 top players run it), or Guardian Lord Nahma (+55 each) if you get the drop.
• Statues and artworks add only +4 to +10 each (the Pantheon holds 1 colossus, 4 statues and 12 artworks; you swap pieces, you can't enhance them), so buy them last; every questlog endgame build runs Statue: Transcendent Bakarma (Death, Space and Freedom +12; kill Bakarma 10 times in Conquest), then Asahr's Mirror (22 of 24 questlog builds) and Artifact of Eternity (20), then Statue: Kibelisk (10) or Fortress Guardian Notun (9); Artwork: Abyssal Ludra (a Ludra drop) appears in 5. Freedom statues: Gerod (8,000 fragments, +10), Wraith Giselle (5,000), or all 61 home teleports for Statue: Kibelisk (+10).
• Bracelets: Ascension and quest bracelets have fixed lines, but the Abyssal Bracelet (from Ludra; item 70 in questlog's global table, 86 per GameWith) rolls four Empyrean Lord stats at 9–17 each (up to +68), so look for Time and Destruction lines; 19 of 44 questlog characters wear two in some stage, and the common lines are Time, Destruction, Wisdom and Illusion.
• Currency: Phantasmal Fragments, mostly from Nightmare (up to 1,500 a run, and Instant Clear Tickets cost 30,000 Kinah since Oct 28). They can't be traded and carry over between seasons.
• Spend order: Stigma Shards and Daevanion Crystals first (Nightmare Trade Shop: 300 fragments per crystal, 50 per character; 52,500 for 35 shards), then the colossus, then statues and artworks, then wings and cosmetics.

Class orders come from 144 top EU and NA characters (23–25 per class, 196K–288K Combat Power) read from the official armory on Oct 28.

Build variants

Party play

• Stay in front of the boss and turn it away from the party, so they hit its back (rear hits can't be parried) and you Block for Fury.
• Fury, Taunt's Shrink and Debilitating Smash's −25% Defense are party damage; a Chanter's Undefeated Mantra and a Cleric's Light of Protection overlap with each other, not with you.
• Call your Empyrean Lord's Punishment for stagger checks, and warn the healer before Shield of Protection or Nezekan's Shield so heals aren't wasted.

Events and what to prioritize

Almost everything in AION 2 refills on a timer and wastes anything past its cap, so the rule is: spend whatever is closest to its cap first. Daily and weekly counters reset at 16:00 server time (weekly on Wednesday).

Shugo Festival (hourly)

A rotating minigame that opens every hour (a Shugo icon and countdown appear beside the minimap; trust the in-game timer, since published schedules disagree). Entering is free; you pay one Reward Key per reward pick after you finish. A better placement gives more picks, but every pick still costs one key, and confirming a pick is final.

• Keys: 3 per day, cap 12 (21 with membership), shared by every character on your server. Keys over the cap are lost. Sources disagree on exact numbers, so check your in-game counter. Hidden Cube and Dimensional Invasion keys cannot be used here.
• Rewards at level 45: the participation package gives 50 Centuryroot Tokens and 700 Enhance Stones; the key package adds 1,200 Enhance Stones, three Soul Codex (bound), 800 Abyss Points and extra rolls, with a chance at unique gear. Reward pools are Chaos gear, Shade gear, Odyle, Refining Stones and Abyss Points.
• Token milestones: each of the nine games pays 20, 40 and 85 tokens at three participation milestones (1,305 tokens for all of them), and the general Festival track pays 30 tokens plus 10 Soul Crystals at 3 participations and 40 plus 10 at 10.

What a PvE Templar should buy with Centuryroot Tokens (in this order):

1. Daevanion Crystals (bound): 50 tokens each for the first 10, then 100, 200 and 400 (all 50 cost 10,500). More board points is the strongest upgrade for this build.
2. Wisdom Stones (bound): 350 tokens in an event Festival shop per one guide; metabot's global shop data lists none in the Centuryroot Festival shop, so check in-game before saving tokens for them. Each stone is worth one skill point, which only helps until your key skills reach rank 10 (see How skills level up).
3. Stigma Shards (bound): 300 tokens each, up to 35 per character, for Empyrean Lord's Punishment, Battlefield Banner and Doom Shield to 15 and Taunt to 5.
4. Soul Crystal packs: 50 tokens each for ×100, up to 30 per month per character.
5. Cosmetics (wings, pets, skins) last. Wings cost 2,100 to 8,350 tokens.

Korea's Oct 7 patch also merged the per-mode Shugo remnants into one "Masterpiece" remnant that converts through Material Conversion, and added Stigma Shards to the Abyss, Nightmare and Festival shops; global already sells them (Abyss shop 200 per character, Nightmare 35 at 1,500 fragments each, Festival 35 at 300 tokens each). Don't interrupt leveling for every hourly round; start farming it at level 45.

Daily and weekly priority order

Limited-time events right now (as of Nov 4)

Common mistakes

1. Pressing Judgment outside a shield-skill window, or leaving it below rank 16.
2. Letting Executor drop: recast a charged Punishment before its 20 s run out.
3. Putting Punishment, Taunt or defensive cooldowns in the macro.
4. Stacking every defensive cooldown on the first big hit instead of spreading them.
5. Turning the boss toward the party, or standing where you can't Block.
6. Spending Empyrean Lord's Punishment before a mandatory stagger check.
7. Spreading Daevanion points instead of taking the +1 skill nodes on every board.
8. Running pure defense once you can survive: damage is your limit in endgame.
9. Skill lines on the weapon or guard instead of the rings.
10. Letting Shugo keys or Odyle Energy sit at their cap. The weekly Odyle cube counter (one guide; unverified) also drops when you clear without taking the cube; at 0 you can't enter Conquest or Transcendence until reset.
11. Mouse macros or third-party tools.

Community builds (questlog)

The most-liked global PvE builds on questlog.gg's skill builder and character builder (checked Oct 31, rechecked Nov 7) mostly match this guide. Likes are small and many endgame stages are wish lists, so read them as community opinion beside the armory data above. One author (_leonis) made most of the Templar builds, so read them as one strong opinion.

Where they differ from this guide:

• Stigmas: every top questlog build runs Noble Armor at 15 (×1.5 Fury) with Battlefield Banner and Doom Shield, plus Taunt or Shield of Protection. The armory data above still shows Taunt and Empyrean Lord's Punishment more often, so both setups work; Banner goes 15, then 20.
• Ranks: November builds (11) run Pummel 16 (11 of 11), Punishment 16 (8), Warding Strike 16 (9), Judgment 20 (9) and Vicious Strike 20 (8).
• Options: Punishment +30% skill speed and ignores Block and crits (16) (8 of 11); Pummel −1 s Punishment and Punishing Strike extra damage (16) (9 of 11); Warding Strike −5 s and party +10% tolerance (16) (6 of 11); Annihilate −10 s and +100% vs CC-immune (8 of 11); Poach adds a 10% HP shield (10 of 11) and moves you to a CC-immune target; Vicious Strike −2 s Warding Strike and Threatening Blow, no +MP.
• Passives: Fury, Insulting Roar, Impact Hit, then Punishing Benediction. 6 of 11 November builds leave Debilitating Smash at rank 1, unslotted.
• Gear: rings Judgment and Vicious Strike, then Pummel or Punishment; armor and jewelry Fury and Insulting Roar. Damage builds stone Attack; Block stones are for main tanks.

• Stack setup: Judgment > Shield Smite / Warding Strike > Pummel on right mouse plus a 2-step Taunt + Judgment macro, held with left mouse (10 of 11 builds); Poach on 1 (11 of 11), Shield Rush on Q or 5, Battlefield Banner and Noble Armor on E or 6, and Taunt stacked over Annihilate.
• Gear by stage: Spiritforged Longsword +10 to about 2,100 (skip Rupture) → Enraged Kromede Sword (7 of 8; no Templar build plans a Ludra weapon), Nuakum guard and armor, Kromede jewelry → crafted Splendent Dark Longsword (86) or Ebony (102); Dark Veil wings in 3 of 5.
• Titles: Playing God (Attack slot: PvE Damage Boost +5.5%, Accuracy +90, Double Chance +400) appears in some builds, but its condition is unpublished, the client flags it hidden and no global owner is confirmed, so plan around Unbound by Genus. Journey's Path (Other slot: Combat Speed +3%, HP +900) comes from collecting 6 Unique Expedition artworks.
• Gear extras: Philosopher's Stone: Revelation adds a fifth engraving line to Unique gear (2 stones and 1M Kinah, always succeeds; weapon and guard first). Superior stones can also roll Damage Boost, Weapon, Crit Damage, or Front or Back Attack Damage Boost (about 0.5% each, +100 at best); keep any on the weapon and guard, but yellow Attack +10 is the realistic target. Necklace and earrings reroll toward Might, then Precision, after the class passives.
• Chalice crystals: the 5 Mysterious Crystals for a Unique Chalice come from Season Mission > Tower of Trials (3, for 4,000+ points in Hard Ascension Trial), the Season Shop (1, 25,000 coins) and extracting spare cards (1).

Sources

Korean data runs a couple of patches ahead of global; check tooltips after big patches.

• metabot Templar class page (global client data) and top-150 build stats
• metabot Templar skills (one page per skill) and Daevanion planner (Templar boards)
• AION2CAL Templar guide and class DPS by combat-power bracket
• aion2-guides.info Templar guide (Oct 20)
• games.gg Templar guide and gamesfuze Templar build
• keengamer macro guide (Oct 12) and gameplay.tips Templar rotation
• gamewith NA Templar build stats
• shugo.gg tier list, KR/TW tier list and Templar skills
• MeinMMO PvE tier list (Oct 13)
• aion2hub Templar class page and patch notes: Aug 26, Sep 2, Sep 4, Sep 16
• metabot stigma, Arcana, Theostone, Manastone and class tier guides
• metabot wings list and mounts, pets and wings guide
• metabot gear progression, Theostone and Manastone guides, and the enhancement calculator
• metabot leveling guide
• metabot titles, dungeon, stigma, crafting and gear enhancement guides
• metabot daily and weekly checklist
• Official Korean update notes list
• AION2 Hub patch notes: Oct 7, Oct 5 launch, Sep 23, Sep 4 and Aug 12
• aion2.blog Shugo Festival guide
• GameTruth Shugo Festival guide
• Official global Twitch Drops notice
• aion2game.com launch events
• MeinMMO on the removed Ludra raid and gaminghq.eu
• game8 Genus Insight guide
• game8 Phantasmal Fragments guide
• Sportskeeda Pantheon explained
• playnews.gg macro setup
• gamesfuze macro setup guide
• aion2timers stat calculator
• Corpus gear score guide: thresholds and what counts (Oct 10)
• Raid Relay gear score progression 45 to 2,100 (Oct 10)
• metabot dungeon guide: run order, entry limits, Ascension Trial gates (Oct 10)
• metabot content unlocks by item level
• Official notice: Server Transfer Products Info (Oct 9)
• Official Producer's Letter: Welcome to Atreia (Oct 9)
• Official notice: Update on Sanctuary Raid (Ludra)
• Official Oct 14 global update notes (aion2hub transcription) and Korea's Oct 14 notes
• Official Oct 21 global update notes (Expedition Hard, Ariel board)
• Official Oct 28 global update notes (boss nerf, Hard Urugugu and Vakron, crafted Amplify)
• Official notice: Ludra Awakens on November 4th (Odyle Energy Boost, Ludra events) and Halloween Twitch Drops
• metabot Transcendence (client data), wikily Deus Research Base and rewards and Shattered Arkanis
• mobalytics Deus Research Base guide and Shattered Arkanis guide; timesaver Transcendence guide
• AionFlex class presence in clears and class damage by dungeon
• raidrelay gear score, Conquest, Transcendence and Gear Transfer guides; aion2-guides.info progression
• metabot stats (0.1% per point, caps) and Arcana guide; Odealo best Arcana per class
• aion2tool global Combat Power ranking (sample selection; stats read from the official armory), allthings.how Nightmare Trade Shop, aion2hub Colossus: Guardian Lord Nahma and GamesFuze Pantheon guide
• questlog.gg skill builder and character builder community builds (checked Oct 31; most-liked global PvE builds per class)
• Official Nov 4 global update notes (Abyssal Forge: Ludra, Exploration buff, crafting)
• AionFlex boss entry Combat Power (Nov 7)
• metabot class builds (wings, titles, CP medians, Nov 4–7)
• metabot Abyssal Forge: Ludra and Combat Power guide
• mobalytics Rahu and Ketu boss guides; expcarry Ludra guide
• questlog.gg skill and character builds, rechecked Nov 7
• Official announcements mirrored on Steam (events, transfer limits)
• allthings.how: Noble Belt and Revelation Amulet upgrades, Daevanion Crystal sources and Clash Runes
• GameTruth belt and amulet guide, Fextralife Clash Rune odds and daevaguides Krao Cave loot
• senseos.gg grade names and Amplify and Selphie: raising gear score (Oct 12)
• wikily.gg Essence Extraction skills and proficiency and Odyle specialty skills (the other node types share the tree)
• VGC Essence Extraction guide, playnews.gg Essence Extraction and selphie1999gaming Splendent Ruby quest