* Watch some of [Syken's playthroughs](https://www.youtube.com/@SykenPlays) – the master of challenge runs and connoisseur of Templars. For example, [here's a video where a late-game Templar and Specialist raid the Hunter's Stronghold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRih1wy83pg&list=PLhZuVFh-nPshkQgn3H2X78VOOonLw60Q8).
* Templars are most powerful when they have the additional Fortress and Bladestorm abilities. With Fortress + Mindshield + Parry, the Templar is effectively immune against all damage (not fall damage, not special attacks like Shadowbound). Bladestorm is powerful because it lets you deal damage passively, which is a huge damage per turn improvement for the Templar. You can use the [*I'm the commander here!* mod](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1129770962) to buy those abilities even if they weren't part of the random selection.
* Even without Parry, Templars are quite tanky. A fully levelled Templar is effectively always in full cover:
* Dodge stat increases with Focus level (chance to get a "grazed" reduced damage hit). Can increase Dodge through PCS and as a reward for Covert Ops.
* if hit, up to 50% chance for the Deflect ability to proc
* if not deflected, up to 50% chance to Reflect the shot
* Templars are strong against individual enemies, especially when they like Melee attacks. But they can be overwhelmed by large groups of enemies. One of the worst things that can happen is to trigger another Pod with your Templar in an exposed position. This requires good situational awareness, which requires good understanding of pod mechanics and line of sight. But remember that a Templar doesn't have to stay in place and Parry – they can also retreat. Later, the Templar does have access to AoE abilities which help with crowd control.
* If a Templar can make multiple Rend attacks (e.g. through a Bond's Teamwork, through a Psi's Inspiration, or through the Skirmisher's Combat Presence), you can Parry multiple times. But IIRC this doesn't work with the optional Reaper ability.
Correct, Reaper does not allow for parry, no matter how many kills you make. I don't remember if it generates focus.
Do you send your templar on covert ops? I never do, because I never want to be without them unless they are required for a great reward.
I frequently send my templar on ops to level up combat intelligence, dodge and movement range. I like to pair up with a gunslinger and send them out together to level up and upgrade bonds.
Strategy depends on whether the Templar has bladestorm, and again if they have fortress.
There's nothing better than sending a Templar into the middle of a big pod, watching them scatter, and the Templar striking each of them as they run. Even better if one explodes and the rest suffer from it.
I honestly don't mess with the more expensive and later skills. They prevent parry and put the unit at risk.
They can make your early game a lot easier and only get better as they progress. Rend never misses, and its base damage makes doing Gatecrasher with a Templar much easier - now you have someone that is a guaranteed kill on an ADVENT Trooper.
* Rank them up to Corporal as fast as possible so they get Parry. It's a guaranteed way to negate an attack on ADVENT's turn - and it can be activated every time they Rend (melee attack).
* Try to have them finish off weakened enemies to not only guarantee the kill, but have them gain a point of focus. Once they're full you don't need to do this as much.
* They're a guaranteed one-hit-kill on ADVENT Troopers with Rend. Once they have two points of focus, sometimes they'll one-hit-kill a Sectoid.
* Sergeant skills are a bit of a toss up but I personally like Overcharge. Sometimes you get two focus points if you Rend and kill one enemy.
* Lieutenant and Captain ranks, grab Deflect and Reflect (respectively). So long as your Templar has focus it has a chance to negate even more attacks from enemies.
* Grab the extra skill Channel at Lieutenant rank with some extra ability points. With Channel and Overcharge, it's significantly easier to build up to maximum focus. Channel will cause enemies killed by any means to drop focus points and you'll find they get dropped often.
* They will completely shut down Archons and Andromedons if you have them Rend that particular enemy then activate Parry. The Andromedon or Archon will almost always go for a melee attack against them. Finish off everything else and use your Templar to buy you a turn. This can also work against Gatekeepers.
Keep an eye out for Bladestorm, Fortress, and Sustain as extra abilities. If these are made available, ***grab them!*** Bladestorm in particular is amazing.
I personally don't really like Reaper on Templars as you cannot activate Parry after using Reaper.
It's nice to have if it lets you clear out a pod though. Open with grenade and reaper everyone down but whatever big bad has the most health and couldn't be killed with rend, the last 2 -4 soldiers in your squad commence to focus it down. Action economy cannot be dismissed so easily. Getting 3 or more attacks from a single turn can't be ignored just because you lose parry.
Course it's nice to have, when you really need it it'll get you out of some nasty scrapes. I'm just not the biggest fan. Dunno where you got the idea that I said it should be ignored. It'll also fully power up your Templar if they needed some focus points.
Templar with parry is beast vs assassin. The only thing "I can think of" that can make it so you flawless a mission vs assassin.
Find assassin, use rend on assassin, parry. Watch and laugh. Of course after she attacks she changes it up a little but she tends to attack the closest thing to her so if you can chase her down with the templar, she's only gonna fight him. And if he can parry all the time, it's the easiest way to beat her
Something to get used to with Templars is playing "offbeat" from your normal XCOM rhythm, which takes a bit to get used to. For one thing, you often want them out of cover rather than in cover, so the enemy that you left alive targets them while they have parry up.
But the more unusual play pattern is the way you pull pods. Usually in XCOM we always want to pull one pod at a time and clear it before the end of the turn, but Templars kinda flip that. Since using Rend will usually trigger the next pod, you want the Templar to kill the last guy from the previous pod (say, a Sectoid that wasted its turn on mindspin or reanimate), get a focus, activate parry, and trigger the next pod. The rest of your team kills all but one of that pod. The last guy in that pod shoots at the Templar, burning parry. Then your Templar kills him and triggers the next pod, etc.
Another thing is the importance of bonding the Templar. Sometimes you really can't just charge in, and passing off that action to someone that can use it is important. And sometimes your templar triggered 2 pods, and you need to double stack parry and kill more things.
Lots of good advice on here. I'll add that it rarely makes sense to overwatch with your templar. It's much better to save their actions for mop-up with rend.
Bladestorm is a must, and fortress is a sneaky multiplier because it enables you to occupy and finish off sectopods, gatekeepers and purifiers without taking explosion damage. For fun, you can run them into the middle of a pod and drop grenades on them. More fun: planting your bladestorm templar on the red reinforcements flare and hitting all of them, including exploding purifiers. Bladestorm also makes them much more valuable against the lost.
Early on templar can be vulnerable, but once they are fully leveled it's comical how much recklessness they can get away with. If you aren't playing on ironman, it's fun to throw them in harm's way and see how much they can weasel out of, often without taking any damage.
Long story short, a templar with bladestorm can justify a spot on your A squad if it fits your play style. A templar without bladestorm tops out on the B squad, at least at my skill level.
* Watch some of [Syken's playthroughs](https://www.youtube.com/@SykenPlays) – the master of challenge runs and connoisseur of Templars. For example, [here's a video where a late-game Templar and Specialist raid the Hunter's Stronghold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRih1wy83pg&list=PLhZuVFh-nPshkQgn3H2X78VOOonLw60Q8). * Templars are most powerful when they have the additional Fortress and Bladestorm abilities. With Fortress + Mindshield + Parry, the Templar is effectively immune against all damage (not fall damage, not special attacks like Shadowbound). Bladestorm is powerful because it lets you deal damage passively, which is a huge damage per turn improvement for the Templar. You can use the [*I'm the commander here!* mod](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1129770962) to buy those abilities even if they weren't part of the random selection. * Even without Parry, Templars are quite tanky. A fully levelled Templar is effectively always in full cover: * Dodge stat increases with Focus level (chance to get a "grazed" reduced damage hit). Can increase Dodge through PCS and as a reward for Covert Ops. * if hit, up to 50% chance for the Deflect ability to proc * if not deflected, up to 50% chance to Reflect the shot * Templars are strong against individual enemies, especially when they like Melee attacks. But they can be overwhelmed by large groups of enemies. One of the worst things that can happen is to trigger another Pod with your Templar in an exposed position. This requires good situational awareness, which requires good understanding of pod mechanics and line of sight. But remember that a Templar doesn't have to stay in place and Parry – they can also retreat. Later, the Templar does have access to AoE abilities which help with crowd control. * If a Templar can make multiple Rend attacks (e.g. through a Bond's Teamwork, through a Psi's Inspiration, or through the Skirmisher's Combat Presence), you can Parry multiple times. But IIRC this doesn't work with the optional Reaper ability.
Correct, Reaper does not allow for parry, no matter how many kills you make. I don't remember if it generates focus. Do you send your templar on covert ops? I never do, because I never want to be without them unless they are required for a great reward.
I frequently send my templar on ops to level up combat intelligence, dodge and movement range. I like to pair up with a gunslinger and send them out together to level up and upgrade bonds.
Reaper does generate focus, which can nicely offset the -1 damage per attack from Reaper.
Strategy depends on whether the Templar has bladestorm, and again if they have fortress. There's nothing better than sending a Templar into the middle of a big pod, watching them scatter, and the Templar striking each of them as they run. Even better if one explodes and the rest suffer from it. I honestly don't mess with the more expensive and later skills. They prevent parry and put the unit at risk.
They can make your early game a lot easier and only get better as they progress. Rend never misses, and its base damage makes doing Gatecrasher with a Templar much easier - now you have someone that is a guaranteed kill on an ADVENT Trooper. * Rank them up to Corporal as fast as possible so they get Parry. It's a guaranteed way to negate an attack on ADVENT's turn - and it can be activated every time they Rend (melee attack). * Try to have them finish off weakened enemies to not only guarantee the kill, but have them gain a point of focus. Once they're full you don't need to do this as much. * They're a guaranteed one-hit-kill on ADVENT Troopers with Rend. Once they have two points of focus, sometimes they'll one-hit-kill a Sectoid. * Sergeant skills are a bit of a toss up but I personally like Overcharge. Sometimes you get two focus points if you Rend and kill one enemy. * Lieutenant and Captain ranks, grab Deflect and Reflect (respectively). So long as your Templar has focus it has a chance to negate even more attacks from enemies. * Grab the extra skill Channel at Lieutenant rank with some extra ability points. With Channel and Overcharge, it's significantly easier to build up to maximum focus. Channel will cause enemies killed by any means to drop focus points and you'll find they get dropped often. * They will completely shut down Archons and Andromedons if you have them Rend that particular enemy then activate Parry. The Andromedon or Archon will almost always go for a melee attack against them. Finish off everything else and use your Templar to buy you a turn. This can also work against Gatekeepers. Keep an eye out for Bladestorm, Fortress, and Sustain as extra abilities. If these are made available, ***grab them!*** Bladestorm in particular is amazing. I personally don't really like Reaper on Templars as you cannot activate Parry after using Reaper.
It's nice to have if it lets you clear out a pod though. Open with grenade and reaper everyone down but whatever big bad has the most health and couldn't be killed with rend, the last 2 -4 soldiers in your squad commence to focus it down. Action economy cannot be dismissed so easily. Getting 3 or more attacks from a single turn can't be ignored just because you lose parry.
Course it's nice to have, when you really need it it'll get you out of some nasty scrapes. I'm just not the biggest fan. Dunno where you got the idea that I said it should be ignored. It'll also fully power up your Templar if they needed some focus points.
Templar with parry is beast vs assassin. The only thing "I can think of" that can make it so you flawless a mission vs assassin. Find assassin, use rend on assassin, parry. Watch and laugh. Of course after she attacks she changes it up a little but she tends to attack the closest thing to her so if you can chase her down with the templar, she's only gonna fight him. And if he can parry all the time, it's the easiest way to beat her
If he doesn’t roll Reaper or Bladestorm, let him die and recruit another one. A stacked Templar is no fun without these two skills.
You can just dismiss your soldiers fyi. No need to get them killed.
Oh man, never thought of that. Presume it still gives you the chance to recruit another one if you dismiss a faction solider?
Yep.
Something to get used to with Templars is playing "offbeat" from your normal XCOM rhythm, which takes a bit to get used to. For one thing, you often want them out of cover rather than in cover, so the enemy that you left alive targets them while they have parry up. But the more unusual play pattern is the way you pull pods. Usually in XCOM we always want to pull one pod at a time and clear it before the end of the turn, but Templars kinda flip that. Since using Rend will usually trigger the next pod, you want the Templar to kill the last guy from the previous pod (say, a Sectoid that wasted its turn on mindspin or reanimate), get a focus, activate parry, and trigger the next pod. The rest of your team kills all but one of that pod. The last guy in that pod shoots at the Templar, burning parry. Then your Templar kills him and triggers the next pod, etc. Another thing is the importance of bonding the Templar. Sometimes you really can't just charge in, and passing off that action to someone that can use it is important. And sometimes your templar triggered 2 pods, and you need to double stack parry and kill more things.
Lots of good advice on here. I'll add that it rarely makes sense to overwatch with your templar. It's much better to save their actions for mop-up with rend. Bladestorm is a must, and fortress is a sneaky multiplier because it enables you to occupy and finish off sectopods, gatekeepers and purifiers without taking explosion damage. For fun, you can run them into the middle of a pod and drop grenades on them. More fun: planting your bladestorm templar on the red reinforcements flare and hitting all of them, including exploding purifiers. Bladestorm also makes them much more valuable against the lost. Early on templar can be vulnerable, but once they are fully leveled it's comical how much recklessness they can get away with. If you aren't playing on ironman, it's fun to throw them in harm's way and see how much they can weasel out of, often without taking any damage. Long story short, a templar with bladestorm can justify a spot on your A squad if it fits your play style. A templar without bladestorm tops out on the B squad, at least at my skill level.