The core of this build is to get as much Barrier as possible, so much so that your health bar will effectively just be blue instead of red.


Then, using a rather roundabout method, turn that blue into damage. The result is nigh indestructible with excellent amounts of damage. At full kit with mostly maxed out augmentations and gems, Templar casually strolls through Elite Mythic 15 blinding everyone in Ayeela's... 'Mercy'. I hope you like the colour yellow taking up your screen, because there's plenty where we're going.

This build is not better than that sanic speed Slice/Thorns build I've seen around, but it's absolutely effective, mechanically unique, and flashy.

Side note, I took forever to actually finish writing this, and this build was initially made for v0.94. It continues to function perfectly well up to 0.96.2.

Edit - Don't see any changes to be made as of 0.98

Let's start with skill trees.

Link to exported build file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Wvnp392b6RBdlKYz0ZHPRPWaGpNC14h/view?usp=drivesdk

First up, Physical/Vengeance. Vengeance gives us Phantom Shield, as well as some free survivability.

















Next, Lightning/Wrath. Attack Speed affects the speed of casting powers too, so we want some of that so we can get through all of our casting faster. Also, Critical Chance enhances the Hellfire enchantment which we can use later.

















And now, Fire/Conviction. Some free damage and regen from the passives at the bottom, as well as the Salvation Aura. We don't actually care much about the effects of the Aura itself, but it gives us even more Barrier with one of the Mastery tree perks.

In Theory...
Instead of Salvation, try the Alacrity Aura from the Lightning/Wrath tree. You'll basically be able to cast the two damage powers twice in a row, but it also means you waste a little bit of time re-casting Prayer and your Ultimate. Assuming you do what I do and bind everything to left mouse, which you really don't have to do. I used Alacrity for most of this characters runtime, swapping to Salvation later on.

















The big one, Holy/Redemption, where we actually have our build.

Grab the bottom line for Grace for the extra barrier and resists that come with it. The Prayer Aura for the extra Effect Duration, and the Favor passive for the Mana on Hit. Mana on Hit is pretty important for this build, as you'll be burning mana at all times, even idle.

Our attack skills are going to be Searing Light and Holy Light. They... basically do the same thing really, create circles on the ground that deal damage per second.

Our core mechanic is going to be derived from the Hallowed passive, so make sure to stick the point into that. It's worth taking Expulsion not necessarily for the damage, but for the stun from Exorcism. Really helps with survivability.

For our Ultimate, Divine Intervention. Yes, not Ascension. We get significantly more damage from the extra Barrier than from 25% base damage. Unfortunately it means we don't get the glorious golden armour, but sacrifices must be made in honour of Ayeela's Divine Light.

















And finally, Masteries.
As with many builds most of the stuff in these outside of the Holy line is just dump points to progress, but let's take a look at some of the exceptions.

Physical
- Multiple bonuses for Phantom Shield
- Auras provide 15% extra damage to their respective element
- 25% increased Aura effect strength

Lightning
- 20% Attack Speed
- 10% Increased Magic Damage when using a Tome
- 5% Damage Resist
- 25% damage to every element

Fire
- 20% Effect Duration
- 10% Damage Stagger - Note, we don't want very much Damage Stagger. More on that later.
- Salvation now gives Barrier, up to 30% of max Health.

For our Legendary set, naturally we'll be using Avatar of Ayeela.

Helmet
Protecting our noodle will be Ayeela's Sight using a Weyrick's Crown rune. Fairly standard. What isn't standard is how many +Mana enchantments and gems you're about to see on this and the rest of the equipment. We'll get to that.
























Offhand
We wade into battle holy book in hand with Ayeela's Wisdom, enhanced with an Art of Combat rune. The Art of Combat turns our basic attack from the Holy tree into a radial six-way attack, great for some extra stacks of Hallowed and hitting distant enemies.

In Theory...
You can also substitute The Art of Combat for a Storming Hammers rune, replacing the Holy Bolt ability with Hammer Storm. Holy Bolt is better at point blank as you hit a single target with more than one bolt per cast and has better range, while Storming Hammers more consistently hits enemies at medium range. Also it looks cool.






















Sword
To smite our foes, Ayeela's Will with an Illumine rune. The damage from the Illumine rune isn't terribly important, but there weren't many other options that jumped out at me.

In Theory...
Rather than Power All, one may also consider +Mana, or Hellfire. Hellfire applies stacks of Hallowed, though I only just realized how powerful this could be and haven't tested it much yet. Early tests show significant promise, at the cost of framerate.
























Chestplate
Protecting us from the evils of the world in more ways than one, Ayeela's Embrace with a Vestige of Lost Souls rune. This is where we get most of our Barrier, and is the reason we're stacking so much +Mana. My current mana cap on this character is 76635, giving 459810 Barrier from the chestplate alone.

Additionally, this is why we don't want too much Damage Stagger. DS ignores barriers, meaning if you have 30% DS and are hit for 100 damage, 70 damage hits your barrier while the staggered 30 goes directly to your health. Having some DS helps take the pressure off of your barrier, making use of your health-on-hit to nullify some incoming damage. This also allows the 40% damage resist bonus from our legendary set to proc consistently. But, too much DS and you'll drop dead before your barrier gets anywhere close to breaking.

In Theory...
Gems can only increase Mana when used on Helmet/Chest/Boots, which is why there are no elemental resistance gems used, other than the Shadow Resistance. Unfortunately, this means the resists have to go somewhere, and so they take up the enchantment slots on the armour itself in the form of Resist All and Damage Resist. This means we miss out on putting +Mana directly on the chestplate, but at least we have maxed out resists.


























Ring
Nothing special here really, so we'll just get this out of the way. D'Artagnan with a Kingsrock rune, for the set bonus and amped up gems. Man I wish you could put +Mana gems on this, the +Holy Damage gems are just so boring. Oh well.


















Amulet
Athos, just to complete the set bonus with D'Artagnan, but equally important is the Star of the Pure rune we give it. As much barrier as possible!

In Theory...
Critical Chance may be a viable alternative to Power All, due to Hellfire proccing Hallowed. A +20% CC bonus is pretty solid.



















Boots
There's honestly very few boots that benefit this build at all, so Battle Boots augmented with a Lusombra's Path it is. I use a Spell Codex of Soul Warp for mobility as this build lacks it otherwise, which in turn procs Battle Boots. This also lets us skimp out on raw Damage Resist since we'll get some from this. Then Lusombra's Path gives a large amount of Holy Damage at the cost of a few gem/enchant slots spent on Shadow Resist.

In Theory...
Cloudrunners would make a decent alternative to Battle Boots supplement the build's lack of mobility, though you'd be sacrificing the %DR.
















Accessory
Finally, here's the item our build actually revolves around. No, not Rahlence's Resolution, that's just for some free random buffs; the Hallowed Grace rune. I've seen a grand total of one other build mention this rune, and even then they didn't use the Vestige of Lost Souls.

This is the real reason we build such ridiculous amounts of Barrier. 150 times the strength of your barrier is added to the damage of Hallowed. So not only are we highly durable with automatically regenerating barriers, but the more durability we have, the harder we hit.

In Theory...
Heartstone is a VERY competitive item for this slot. Personally, I dislike the loss of resistances since it feels a tad too squishy to me, but the damage increase you get from it (your ultimate gives barrier based on max HP) is definitely worth it if you can stand the lowered durability. Personal choice I guess, glass cannon versus immortal belt sander.

I love this build, if only for how it defies the typical song and dance of building raw damage, instead opting to build mana, an otherwise non-combat stat. It also turns your screen yellow with the ALMIGHTY POWER OF AYEELA.

So, where does that leave us?

Pros:
- Basically immortal
- Pretty good damage
- Amazing damage, if you opt for Heartstone
- Very easy to play
- Large damage area
- Only gets stronger the more mobs are onscreen
- Bask in Ayeela's Glorious Light

Cons:
- Definitely not some meta slaughterfest build
- Relies on a large number of rare drops
- Easy to play... but kinda mindless
- And also blinded by damage numbers, recommend turning those off outside of testing.
- Your damage ticks that actually matter occur in one second intervals, leading to a bit of over/underkill as you stack up enough Hallowed stacks to kill an enemy
- Blinded by the light



And that concludes this build, thank you for stopping by! Ayeela's blessings upon you.