AION 2 Templar PvE Build: Judgment Macro, Stigmas & Opener

What is the best Templar PvE build right now?

The PvE Templar on Global plays as a damage tank: it spams Judgment inside the windows that Shield Smite, Warding Strike and Doom Shield open, and keeps the boss with Enmity and blocks. The table is the whole build at a glance; each section below explains one part.

For the class as a whole, start from the Templar builds hub, or compare the most-liked community builds in Best Templar Build. To compare the Templar with other classes, see the classes overview.

Which skills should a PvE Templar push to 16?

Judgment, Pummel, Vicious Strike and Punishment. Each one gets a game-changing specialization at level 16, and NoBS Game Guides’ numbers show what that is worth: about 12k damage per second at 1,400 item level, 16k–20k at 1,600 once Pummel or Vicious Strike reach 16, and about 45k at 2,100 with all four at 16.

Leonis’ “Offensive Setup - Midgame” build is aimed at about 2,300 gear score, and it is one of the most-liked Templar builds on questlog.gg (14 likes, updated 2026-10-10). Xia names the same priorities: Judgment 16 first, then Vicious Strike, Punishment and Warding Strike.

Skill points only take a skill to level 10, and the Daevanion boards add four more. The last two come from skill lines on rings and Arcana, covered in the Templar gear guide. Xia points out that only two Arcana cards can roll Judgment, the Chalice and the Parchment, so those are the cards to upgrade first once you can farm Transcendence.

Which specializations should you pick?

Active skills unlock specialization options at levels 8, 12 and 16. The creators agree on most picks:

• Judgment: removes its cooldown at 16 for everyone. At 12, Leonis and NoBS take always crits. Once your Critical Hit is high enough, Xia and Leonis swap that for extra damage on hit; Xia reports 10–20% more damage after this and a few other mid-game spec changes.
• Vicious Strike: −2s Warding Strike cooldown on hit for everyone; Xia and NoBS add the Threatening Blow chain at 16.
• Pummel: −1s Punishment cooldown on hit, plus −20% MP cost (Leonis) or extra Punishing Strike damage at 16 (NoBS).
• Punishment: +30% Skill Speed, plus damage over time (Leonis, NoBS) or moving while casting (Xia’s farming build).
• Warding Strike: −5s cooldown and a heal over time during Warding, in every build.
• Shield Smite: −2s cooldown and a 50% chance to trigger Debilitating Smash.
• Annihilate: −10s cooldown, plus Multi-Hit (Leonis) or +100% damage against targets that cannot be stunned, such as bosses (Xia, NoBS).
• Shield Rush: +10m range and −10s cooldown.
• Poach: moves you to targets that cannot be pulled, so it works as a gap closer on bosses. Add a 10% Max HP shield for bosses, or the cooldown reset on a kill while farming.

Which stigmas should a PvE Templar run?

Doom Shield and Noble Armor in every setup; the other two depend on how safe you want to play. Doom Shield unlocks Judgment and resets Annihilate. Noble Armor multiplies your two best passives. The public setups:

Leonis’ advice for a fight you are not confident in, or a weak healer: swap Empyrean Lord’s Punishment for Shield of Protection. aLuckyRO is the one voice against rushing Noble Armor. He skips it early because Season 1’s first dungeons are easy, and puts Taunt to 15 instead so the boss stays on you.

Stigma levels. The creators agree on two breakpoints:

• Noble Armor to 15 first (Leonis, Xia, NoBS). Level 10 multiplies Insulting Roar by 1.5, and level 15 does the same for Fury.
• Doom Shield to 5, where it starts resetting Annihilate’s cooldown.

After that the routes differ. Leonis takes Battlefield Banner to 10 and notes that each level from 10 to 15 costs four stigma shards. His midgame build later pushes it to 20 for −30s cooldown. Xia takes Taunt to 20 once Noble Armor is at 15: from level 5, its Shrink also lowers the boss’s PvE Damage Tolerance by 10%, so the whole party deals more damage. While leveling, Leonis raises Empyrean Lord’s Punishment first, because its +50 Stagger at level 10 lets him stagger bosses almost instantly.

How do you set up the Templar macro?

Put Judgment and the skills that unlock it in one chain, with Pummel on the same chain as a filler, and hold the macro together with left click (Vicious Strike). The in-game macro fires the first ready skill in each chain, starting from the bottom row, so Judgment fires whenever it is unlocked. NoBS Game Guides stresses that Pummel must sit in the same chain as Judgment, above it. Otherwise the macro alternates between chains and fires Pummel when it should be firing Judgment.

The biggest difference is Doom Shield. Leonis puts it in the macro so it unlocks Judgment on cooldown. Xia and NoBS keep both dashes on their own keys. If the macro fires a dash while you are dodging a mechanic, it can throw you straight back into the boss.

Xia credits her setup to another Templar player, Peridot, and moved from third-party macro software to this in-game version. She reports going from 33k–35k to about 40k damage per second with it.

NoBS Game Guides — 45K DPS Templar Rotation Guide — YouTube

NoBS Game Guides — 45K DPS Templar Rotation Guide

What is the best Templar opener?

Buffs first, then a fully charged Punishment, then the macro. The three creators order the first seconds slightly differently:

• NoBS Game Guides: Noble Armor and Battlefield Banner, Poach to close the gap, a fully charged Punishment, then hold the macro. After that, use Punishment on cooldown and your dashes for extra Judgment windows.
• Xia: a fully charged Punishment, Battlefield Banner, Doom Shield, then hold the macro.
• Leonis: buffs, then Punishment and Empyrean Lord’s Punishment together, for the damage boost and an almost instant stagger, then hold both mouse buttons.

The skill behind all three is keeping Executor up. Punishment’s buff lasts 20 seconds, and Pummel cuts its cooldown by 1 second per hit. Leonis found that once Pummel brings the cooldown under 20 seconds, the buff never drops; adding Pummel back to his rotation gained him about 4k damage per second. Xia’s refinement: always cast Punishment before you spend your Judgment windows, so every Judgment hits with the buff.

Is Debilitating Smash worth using?

It depends on whether bosses have Defense to lower, and the creators disagree on that. Debilitating Smash triggers on a block or from Shield Smite and lowers Defense by 25% for 5 seconds, 8 with its specialization.

• Leonis counts on it: with the +3s specialization and a 10-second cooldown, the debuff is up most of the time, and he treats that as 25% more damage.
• Xia dropped it. A tank she trusts told her bosses have no Defense, so Defense debuffs do nothing in PvE, and her own tests showed no difference. The same argument would apply to Executing Blade’s −30% Defense, which Leonis also runs.
• NoBS Game Guides keeps it in his second macro chain.

We cannot settle this from the client data, which lists the debuff but not boss Defense values. If you want to test it yourself, compare two dummy runs with and without it, as Xia did.

How does a Templar hold aggro and survive?

Your damage skills already generate Enmity, and Insulting Roar doubles your Enmity Boost. On top of that, the creators use four tools:

• Taunt: aLuckyRO takes it to 15 for −5s cooldown, so you can re-taunt bosses quickly.
• Warding Strike: +20% PvE Damage Tolerance for 10 seconds; with Vicious Strike cutting its cooldown, it is up almost all the time.
• Shield of Protection: a guaranteed block. NoBS presses it like a parry, right before a big hit lands, or holds it for about 3 seconds to block several attacks. Every block also triggers Fury for the party.
• Nezekan’s Shield: NoBS keeps it for dungeons with raid-wide hits, because it shields the whole party for 3 seconds.

If you are not confident in a fight, Leonis’ swap applies: Shield of Protection instead of Empyrean Lord’s Punishment.

Which passives should a PvE Templar level?

Fury first, then Insulting Roar, Impact Hit and Punishing Benediction. That is Leonis’ order, and Xia names the same four as her top priority.

• Fury: every block gives you and the party +5.5% PvE Damage Boost for 20 seconds. Noble Armor at level 15 multiplies it by 1.5.
• Insulting Roar: doubles your Enmity Boost and adds Attack after front attacks; ×1.5 from Noble Armor at level 10.
• Impact Hit and Punishing Benediction: Double Chance and Impact-type chance, and Critical Hit with a chance of extra damage on each hit.

After those, Leonis levels Enhance Health (it also raises Incoming Heal, which adds up with Warding Strike’s frequent heals), Ironclad Defense and Block Pain. NoBS Game Guides ranks Fury first as well, and adds that Guarding Seal is worth having for its shield when you drop to half HP.

How should a PvE Templar spend Daevanion points?

Start with the skill nodes for Judgment, Pummel, Punishment and Vicious Strike, then the passive nodes for Fury and Insulting Roar on Zikel. Collect the Combat Speed, Cooldown Reduction and Damage Boost nodes on the way. NoBS Game Guides’ priority board does the first step with only 140 points. Node-by-node plans are in our Templar Daevanion guide. For other classes’ builds, see the builds directory.

Where does this Templar build come from?

We have not tested this build in-game ourselves. It is compiled from these sources and cross-checked against the skill data:

• Skill, specialization and stigma data: the game client data in questlog.gg’s skill builder (Global, checked 2026-10-10).
• Leonis: THE HIGHEST DPS TEMPLAR BUILD - COMPLETE GUIDE (2026-09-29), HOW I’M TOP DPS AS TEMPLAR (2026-10-04), and his public early and midgame builds.
• Xia: AION 2 Templar Guide (2026-10-05), New In-Game Macro (2026-10-06), Macro & Manual Rotation (2026-10-07), Templar specs for 58K DPS (2026-10-09), and her public boss build.
• NoBS Game Guides: 45K DPS Templar Rotation Guide (2026-10-08) and the public build and rotation notes published under his channel name (updated 2026-10-09).
• aLuckyRO: AION 2 Latest Templar PvE Build for Global (2026-09-29).

Damage numbers, such as NoBS Game Guides’ figures per item level or Xia’s macro gains, come from the creators’ own testing, not from the client data.