Let's talk about Argonians - Race Change please

Sylvyr

Slurg wrote: »

What is the new racial passive and why can't I find it in the patch notes? Does it benefit anyone?

Nothing in 1.6 patch notes about NB catalyst, Argonian potion passive, or alchemy medicinal use changes. Except 1.6.1 a note about NB catalyst new bonus getting changed.

Kinda sneaky.

Vordae

Shuichi wrote: »

Guess what? Potion speed builds were probably never an intended mechanic for this game. Instead of complaining about this build we should try to come together as a community to figure out NEW ways of being viable, instead of creating this toxic "GIVE RACE CHANGE NAO" mentality so many of us seem to have.

If potion speed builds were not intended why did they create potion speed enchants. Why have a racial passive and a class passive that boosted potion effectiveness. That seems pretty intentional and sets people up with the idea for a potion build the moment they are creating there character. It's obvious to see they were intended. They ended up being stronger then intended and now are removed. That is not the fault of the players who picked to play that race/class for a year.

I don't think a race change is necessary as long as they buff the Argonian racials.

A stealth passive would fit there lore. The increased healing passive needs to be improved. Better yet mix the 2. Instead of having the stealth passive that woodelf and khajit have they could have a passive that reduces stamina cost of stealthing or removes the cost all together and while stealthed they gain a large health regen buff.

There % health increase should be increased to 10%.

For a passive that effects combat they could change the potion racial to like a poison master passive. Increasing all Damage over Time damage by 3/6/9% and increasing there duration by 7/14/21%

PlagueMonk

I posted this a while ago in another thread.....

From the Elder Scrolls Wiki:

Argonians or Saxhleel[1] are a race of reptilian people native to the large and marshy province known as Black Marsh, a region of Tamriel. They can be found in smaller numbers throughout the continent, and have been featured in every one of the main games so far. Argonians are one of the few races completely unrelated to men and mer, being descended directly from the Hist. Enigmatic and intelligent, the Argonians are experts of guerrilla tactics, and their natural abilities suit their swampy homeland. They have developed immunities to diseases that have plagued many would-be explorers in the region, and they are capable of easily exploring underwater locations due to their ability to breathe water. Argonians make proficient thieves, due to their superb lockpicking and sneaking skills. They are also very capable warriors and archers due to their constant use of guerrilla warfare against Warring Tribes or Dunmer slavers.

Argonians have gills on their necks and are covered in scales. This gives Argonians the ability to breathe underwater, which has proven to be an advantage in combat with other races, especially in the swamps of Black Marsh. Argonians are trained in guerilla warfare and drown their enemies by dragging them to the water and holding them under. Soldiers walking alongside rivers, travelling on ships in the ocean or barges along the rivers have been attacked by Argonians that ambushed them from the water where they lay in wait. They then either kill them or they are forced to flee back into the water and vanish into the depths. Either way it is an effective strategy as they cannot be followed into the deeper oceans and rivers.

I have highlighted the important passages:

So Argonians are experts at guerrilla warfare, immune to disease, excellent thieves, superb at sneaking and lockpicking, breathe underwater and have scaly hides.

So how did we go from ALL that great source material to better swimming, better at using a restoration staff, slightly more HPs and more receptive at being healed?!

If I was to redesign our passives i would get rid of the stupid resto staff exp and do the following:

Guerrilla Warfare Expertise (3 ranks) – Increases stealth speed by (7/14/21)% and increases damage done while stealthed by (3/6/9)%

Amphibian Physiology (3 ranks) – Increases swimming speed by 50% and armor rating by (3/6/9)%

Argonian Resistance (3 ranks) – Increases maximum Health by (3/6/9)% and Poison/Disease resistance by (10/20/30). Disease resistance should apply directly to disease abilities, lessening their effect by a flat amount (including meatbag cats)

Quick to Mend (3 ranks) – Increases healing received by (4/8/12)% and health regen (7/14/21)%.

AND if/when underwater zones come, we should get the ability to breathe underwater dammit!


Note that most of the abilities I changed out are directly from other races.

ashlee17

I would love it to also increase healing other players just a small selfish pie in the sky wish for my argonian templar

Jar_Ek

You cannot get rid of a passive training ability as all races have them - but it could be changed to bows or dual wield.

With respect to the base passives, unless they change the current uncapped stats, not having a +10% stat is a huge limitation.

AlnilamE

As long as they don't nerf the swim speed, my argonians are happy.

Tamanous

It is all so disheartening. I still prefer to play my Argonian ... likely still will. I just hope ZoS opens their eyes and buffs the racials. As PlagueMonk mentioned (and brought up numerous times by fans since beta) Argonians have a detailed list of racial abilities represented in previous games yet not reflected well in ESO.

ZOS: Please update Argonian racials reflecting previous lore with some attempt to counter this current nerf to facilitate min/max setups better especially with some DPS benefits. The current nerfed state appears sub par unless someone can mathematically prove this wasn't simply a massive nerf.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

I was so bummed when I logged in to find the hidden nerfs to Argonians and potion usage. Although, my approach was somewhat different from many others' in that I play a tank in PvE and then use bow/1h in PvP (with 5 medium and 2 heavy). Since beta, I strategized my build to maximized healing received from NBs numerous self-heals/HoTs and from healers in my group, relying on a mix of potion speed and health potion enhancing enchants to give me BIG (well over 1k) instant, resource-free self-heals from potions. With my current gear (5pc Footmans, 4pc Unassailable, 3pc Shalidor's Curse), I have +41% healing received, and have successfully tanked all vet pledges, DSA, AA, SO, and CoA. I love how my Argonian NB tank continually surprises people by breezing through difficult content.

I always thought the synergy between NBs and Argonians was very cool and overlooked by most players (and something definitely intended since they are such niche abilities, and given the possibility of having 3 potion speed enchants). So-called "thirsty" builds were powerful (though still very limited by softcaps) yet expensive, but also pretty uncommon overall compared to other well-known "OP" builds. But it looks like this dynamic part of the game got bulldozed with the new buff system since ability effects/buffs now compete with potion effects/buffs, and offer a flat value that cannot be modified by anything like "potion effectiveness."

The values for Argonian racials definitely need to be increased. There are great ideas for them in this thread, and I would like to add another idea: NB and Argonian passives to reduce potion cooldown as possible alternatives to Catalyst and Amphibious. In addition, they need to de-couple potions from the Major/Minor buff system so that potions retain their power of offering short-term boosts and effects.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Sylvyr wrote: »

Slurg wrote: »

What is the new racial passive and why can't I find it in the patch notes? Does it benefit anyone?

Nothing in 1.6 patch notes about NB catalyst, Argonian potion passive, or alchemy medicinal use changes. Except 1.6.1 a note about NB catalyst new bonus getting changed.

Kinda sneaky.

How did Medicinal Use get changed? Just tried to log on to PTS but can't see it since they deleted all characters.

xaraan

I doubt they have the ability to easily change a race, but I do agree. They have really screwed over certain builds with the way they reworked potions (Argonians or not). I'm glad to get a little ulti gain from a potion, but I'd prefer the potion boost from my NB. And potions going to 45 seconds is too much IMO, especially with resources being stretched thinner in 1.6.

Natjur

Just remove all racial passive.

Robbmrp

Panda244 wrote: »

If they change racial passives, every player of that race should have the option of changing their race. It's like you rolled a Templar to heal, and then a year later, they made the Templar a DPS class and gave all the good heals to a different class.

With all the changes that 1.6 is bringing about maybe it's time they did a complete Race or Class change for everyone. There are major changes taking place for every Class out there making people have to change the way they have played for the past year. Since Tamriel Unlimited is an entirely new game, we should all be able to change our Race/Class if we want to.

Mumyo

Varicite wrote: »

Mumyo wrote: »

Sacadon wrote: »

Ever noticed how all the ZOS vids, fluffers etc... always use Argonians? There passives may or may not be lore accurate, but they most definitely suck in terms of competiveness against the other races. I get that 1.6 is a huge change, but was very surprised to see no lizard love.

U dont know what bad is until u played Nord.
U can now drink any pot u wish and get those 3 attributes aswell. I wouldnt call that a nerf.

The damage resistance passive that Nords got is unique and pretty good, much better than the armor passive that it replaced.

You seem to be missing the point, though.

You can't drink potions nearly as much now, for one. When you double the cooldown on something and keep the percentage boost nearly the same, that is a 50% nerf. So yes, that is a nerf.

And the previous passive applied to ANY potion.

Now you can ONLY get health / magicka / stam. No more crit, weapon damage, spell damage, etc. No more choices.

Nord mitigation drains the more armor and spell resistance u have.
Its propably the best to use it when u wear light armor and is not good for a tank.

From a ex nord point of view i can agree that some races are really not even close to be comparable to any others but im not really sure about the argonian passive. I dont want to make wrong conclusions so ill check it out as much as i can.

Mumyo

PlagueMonk wrote: »

I posted this a while ago in another thread.....

If I was to redesign our passives i would get rid of the stupid resto staff exp and do the following:

Guerrilla Warfare Expertise (3 ranks) – Increases stealth speed by (7/14/21)% and increases damage done while stealthed by (3/6/9)%

Amphibian Physiology (3 ranks) – Increases swimming speed by 50% and armor rating by (3/6/9)%

Argonian Resistance (3 ranks) – Increases maximum Health by (3/6/9)% and Poison/Disease resistance by (10/20/30). Disease resistance should apply directly to disease abilities, lessening their effect by a flat amount (including meatbag cats)

Quick to Mend (3 ranks) – Increases healing received by (4/8/12)% and health regen (7/14/21)%.

AND if/when underwater zones come, we should get the ability to breathe underwater dammit!


Note that most of the abilities I changed out are directly from other races.

LOL.
Lets all get rid of the boring "experience" passive.

PlagueMonk

Jar_Ek wrote: »

You cannot get rid of a passive training ability as all races have them - but it could be changed to bows or dual wield.

With respect to the base passives, unless they change the current uncapped stats, not having a +10% stat is a huge limitation.

That's why I said, "if I was to RE-design". A pipedream I know since the Devs obviously hate Argonians.

If we are talking about a realistic replacement however I would be fine with Argonians getting a DW bonus instead of the silly Resto Staff. Why does a quick healer equate to us being good at using a healer staff? Silly logic.

Mumyo wrote: »

PlagueMonk wrote: »

I posted this a while ago in another thread.....

If I was to redesign our passives i would get rid of the stupid resto staff exp and do the following:

Guerrilla Warfare Expertise (3 ranks) – Increases stealth speed by (7/14/21)% and increases damage done while stealthed by (3/6/9)%

Amphibian Physiology (3 ranks) – Increases swimming speed by 50% and armor rating by (3/6/9)%

Argonian Resistance (3 ranks) – Increases maximum Health by (3/6/9)% and Poison/Disease resistance by (10/20/30). Disease resistance should apply directly to disease abilities, lessening their effect by a flat amount (including meatbag cats)

Quick to Mend (3 ranks) – Increases healing received by (4/8/12)% and health regen (7/14/21)%.

AND if/when underwater zones come, we should get the ability to breathe underwater dammit!


Note that most of the abilities I changed out are directly from other races.

LOL.
Lets all get rid of the boring "experience" passive.

Um yeah. I would be equally in favor of ridding all races of their stupid training lines. Does no one any good once cap lvl is reached. Racials should be useful throughout the life of your character.

Lava_Croft

As an Argonian Magicka Nightblade Alchemist I am hurting pretty bad on PTS. Apart from the entire Magicka (melee) Nightblade being screwed over, the racial and class passives around which I built my entire character are completely changed in a rather nasty way. Gone is the beauty of having just a bit stronger potions than the rest, allowing you to run just a bit faster, detect things at a bit longer range and so forth.

I depend heavily on my Master Race potion quaffing qualities on Live, but so far it seems the only reason to go Argonian on PTS is just because they are the Master Race (ie. role-playing), not because they have something special going for them gameplay-wise.

So after over a 100 in-game days of having fun with and getting very attached to my Saxhleel alter ego, there's just no sane (read: gameplay-related) reason to be an Argonian if this makes it to Live.

A real shame, I must say.

Dragath

Yeah, it is a shame.
There are numerous ways to balance the Racials, but ZOS is just holding back.
Wait for the "We changed every Racial in Game. Oh, and btw. you can now buy Race Changes in Crown Store!" Announcement.
They could have fixed them several month ago.

killedbyping

Screw the Lore.
Give us race revamp and change or remove race passives completely !

Jar_Ek

But part of the problem is that people don't want to change race, just to have somewhat balanced racial passives. Personally I think that they have overlooked the racial +10% passives and that they will be nerfed. Not asking for this, but kinda expecting it.

Slurg

Lava_Croft wrote: »

So after over a 100 in-game days of having fun with and getting very attached to my Saxhleel alter ego, there's just no sane (read: gameplay-related) reason to be an Argonian if this makes it to Live.

A real shame, I must say.

I've always taken the approach that playing an Argonian makes the game hard-mode due to the bad racial passives. So I suppose that will be even more the case in the future. If anyone thinks the game is too easy they need to go roll an Argonian.

But then again I may not be entirely sane.

Kalman

daemonios

Shuichi wrote: »

Guess what? Potion speed builds were probably never an intended mechanic for this game. Instead of complaining about this build we should try to come together as a community to figure out NEW ways of being viable, instead of creating this toxic "GIVE RACE CHANGE NAO" mentality so many of us seem to have.

Never had one of these "thirsty" builds, so I guess I have no bias here... You're basically saying that build was somehow illegitimate/exploitative? I don't see any exploit going on... It was a choice made due to the game mechanics.

The only issue here is that ZOS is gutting those mechanics and rewriting them almost from scratch. It's hard enough to make sense of our current builds with the new 10x stats / CS points, but the game has undergone tremendous changes in both active and passive skills.

People have invested many hours levelling characters that could now be underpowered because of those changes, and may or may not have the time or patience to reroll. To me it doesn't sound unreasonable to allow a race change in these situations.

Maxlof

You are right but i don`t want a free race change.
What i`d like to see is that they rework the passives (but don`t remove the faster swimming!)
A better passive than the ones we already have is something like better stealth, so you can be detected harder, because in the lore they are guarilla fighters and sneaking would fit into their lore.
And rework the other passives and make them competetive please!

Darkonflare15

I going to still play my Argonians(I have two vets) since I pick my race because of the race not the passives.

Varicite

daemonios wrote: »

The only issue here is that ZOS is gutting those mechanics and rewriting them almost from scratch. It's hard enough to make sense of our current builds with the new 10x stats / CS points, but the game has undergone tremendous changes in both active and passive skills.

People have invested many hours levelling characters that could now be underpowered because of those changes, and may or may not have the time or patience to reroll. To me it doesn't sound unreasonable to allow a race change in these situations.

This is exactly the issue right here.

It isn't that I feel ZOS is doing anything wrong by removing the potion speed glyphs, or all of the changes to potions in general.

The problem is that ZOS has locked many players into a choice based on information that is no longer valid due to their decision, and there is currently no way to even partially rectify that change if you did make an educated choice based on your racials prior to ZOS changing their minds.

C0pp3rhead

When I bought this game in April, I rolled an Argonian templar as my main. The racial passives at the time were lackluster, but I still wanted to play as an Argonian. They are, after all, the Master Race. I am not what you would call a min-maxer; I am very happy with my character and I don't mind wearing v13 gear because I can't afford the v14 versions. Now however, I am starting to regret my decision, not because I no longer feel attachment to my reptilian toon, but instead because I am feeling unreasonably disadvantaged compared to other races.

My new passive gives me a 6% return on my primary attributes upon drinking a potion. Let's think about what that 6% means. Let's propose a character with 2.6k health 2.3k magicka, and 1.7k stamina, using live numbers for easy comparison. These stats are probably along the lines of what most magicka builds have, assuming they ate blue food (Fortified Sweetrolls).

6% of 2.6k = 156 health
6% of 2.3k = 138 magicka
6% of 1.7k = 102 stamina

As a magicka build, my magicka regen already around 138. For the other stats, this is around double a single regen tick. Our most unique racial stat gives us the equivalent of a +3 (health) regen only if we use potions every 45s. For the other attributes, even less. In sum, the return on our attributes:
1. Provides too small of a burst to be of immediate use.
2. Equals a stat increase that would be close to unnoticeable.
3. Requires us to chug potions every 45s, regardless of our build.

Moreover, the return is useless when at full health/magicka. Compare this with the damage bonuses that High and Dark Elves receive, or the crit bonuses of Khajiits.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

When I bought this game in April, I rolled an Argonian templar as my main. The racial passives at the time were lackluster, but I still wanted to play as an Argonian. They are, after all, the Master Race. I am not what you would call a min-maxer; I am very happy with my character and I don't mind wearing v13 gear because I can't afford the v14 versions. Now however, I am starting to regret my decision, not because I no longer feel attachment to my reptilian toon, but instead because I am feeling unreasonably disadvantaged compared to other races.

My new passive gives me a 6% return on my primary attributes upon drinking a potion. Let's think about what that 6% means. Let's propose a character with 2.6k health 2.3k magicka, and 1.7k stamina, using live numbers for easy comparison. These stats are probably along the lines of what most magicka builds have, assuming they ate blue food (Fortified Sweetrolls).

6% of 2.6k = 156 health
6% of 2.3k = 138 magicka
6% of 1.7k = 102 stamina

As a magicka build, my magicka regen already around 138. For the other stats, this is around double a single regen tick. Our most unique racial stat gives us the equivalent of a +3 (health) regen only if we use potions every 45s. For the other attributes, even less. In sum, the return on our attributes:
1. Provides too small of a burst to be of immediate use.
2. Equals a stat increase that would be close to unnoticeable.
3. Requires us to chug potions every 45s, regardless of our build.

Moreover, the return is useless when at full health/magicka. Compare this with the damage bonuses that High and Dark Elves receive, or the crit bonuses of Khajiits.

Thank you for this!

Varicite

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

When I bought this game in April, I rolled an Argonian templar as my main. The racial passives at the time were lackluster, but I still wanted to play as an Argonian. They are, after all, the Master Race. I am not what you would call a min-maxer; I am very happy with my character and I don't mind wearing v13 gear because I can't afford the v14 versions. Now however, I am starting to regret my decision, not because I no longer feel attachment to my reptilian toon, but instead because I am feeling unreasonably disadvantaged compared to other races.

My new passive gives me a 6% return on my primary attributes upon drinking a potion. Let's think about what that 6% means. Let's propose a character with 2.6k health 2.3k magicka, and 1.7k stamina, using live numbers for easy comparison. These stats are probably along the lines of what most magicka builds have, assuming they ate blue food (Fortified Sweetrolls).

6% of 2.6k = 156 health
6% of 2.3k = 138 magicka
6% of 1.7k = 102 stamina

As a magicka build, my magicka regen already around 138. For the other stats, this is around double a single regen tick. Our most unique racial stat gives us the equivalent of a +3 (health) regen only if we use potions every 45s. For the other attributes, even less. In sum, the return on our attributes:
1. Provides too small of a burst to be of immediate use.
2. Equals a stat increase that would be close to unnoticeable.
3. Requires us to chug potions every 45s, regardless of our build.

Moreover, the return is useless when at full health/magicka. Compare this with the damage bonuses that High and Dark Elves receive, or the crit bonuses of Khajiits.

I think this is a very well thought out post and eloquently put, thank you.

And I think that you nailed it pretty well at the beginning of your post:

Certainly, I love my Argonian, but it's simply becoming too hard to ignore the huge gap in power levels between my race and others, and that gap is only widening further (both ways) in 1.6.

Not only did ZOS make the other races better w/ the removal of softcaps, but they actively made mine even worse than it was before, and there doesn't seem to be any word whatsoever on if this is intended.

Right now, race is one of the most important choices you can make for your character, and you can never undo it.

I don't mind having to think about the choice I make when I choose a race, but being told to just put aside a year+ of progression because ZOS changed the rules of the game a year later is completely disheartening.

It would be like ZOS suddenly deciding Imperials are too strong, so instead they now receive negative health and stamina, and receive 1 extra gold from mobs when looting.

I couldn't exactly blame the Imperial players for being upset w/ that situation, or feeling completely tricked into playing an inferior character or simply abandon all the work they've put in.

I'd take up my little flag for Imperials in that case, just as I'm doing for Argonians, because let's be honest here; it's just not right.

Deathztalker

It will be interesting to see what ESO will do with the removal of the soft caps, no matter what they do some people wont be happy. It seems because of the racial a lot of DPS and halers have started new toons on Daggerfall Covenant after playing on the PTS. If ESO makes racial changes they will have a lot of people who are unhappy but ESO doesn't make racial changes the game will become unbalanced over time in terms of skilled players. Either way not a problem that will be fun to deal with.

Digiman

OMG you people against this are so sad. Whenever you drink a potion you get 6% of max health, magicka, stamina. That includes any potion, no matter what level, be it 1 or VR 14. That's a golden ticket especially in a 1vs1, and it could be any potion no matter the effect, Immovable, armor, spell power, crit weapon crit you no longer bound by having to stick with regenerative type potions.

Even then the amounts you get if you picked one would be phenomenal. OMG this is so pathetically insulting. Weak race, what a joke.

Secondly You realize all racials are getting a tune up with the removal of soft cap? Besides thirsty was like a jewelry enchant that stacked, it was pigeon holding you into one thing. Now you get a racial that really shakes things up for combat.

I was tettering between a NB khajitt or Argonian, with this racials its argonian now.