Class and Race primer for new players

Triddle

I just thought I'd write a short and frank introduction to classes and races for new players, so they can make semi-informed decisions about what to do now if they want to have a long-lived character. There's way more detailed information out there, but this should be enough to start you off with some idea what's going on. The whole 'play it your way' thing, while great fun to begin with, can lead you up the garden path when it comes to making a viable choice for the end game content.

Dragonknight is the best class, they make the best tanks due to their high self healing, damage shields, CC, and great resource management. They are best (or arguably second best) at stamina dps due to their high damage low cost class skills and stamina regen, they also make excellent healers due to the damage shields, and ultimates that are somewhat useful for healing. They make good magicka dps by going with the fire-mage type builds, they do awesome fire damage. Dragon knights should be imperials, or dunmer if you want to use magicka and be a vampire (and if you're not a vampire you should definitely be a werewolf).

Templar is the best healer due to its class line dedicated to healing and its healing ultimate. They are probably the second best tanks, but honestly you should just get a dragonknight to tank. They do well at the other rolls, but this is pretty much the healer class, and thus should be breton.

Nightblade is the dps class, they do quite well at stamina dps, and can even compare to dragonknights. They are also viable magicka dps, and again, they are comparable to dragonknights in this roll. They make reasonable healers, since some of their skills (particularly funnel health and sap essence from siphoning, and refreshing path from shadow) add more healing. Their veil ultimate is not bad for a healers use. They also have some really good resource management through siphoning strikes. Really though, when it comes to healing you should just get a templar, and as far as tanking goes, the nightblade can again do pretty well, but will never fill the roll of a dragonknight. Nightblades have some flexibility in race choice but best be redguard or khajiit for stamina dps and breton or altmer for magicka dps.

Sorcerer in its current state is best avoided unless you're particularly enthusiastic, since its the worst at all roles. The one thing a sorcerer can do reasonably well is magicka dps, they are perhaps on par with dragonknights for this, but their high-cost low-damage class skills pull them down. Crystal fragments and liquid lightning put out some really good damage, but at the end of the day their abilities just cost more than any other class, and do comparable or less damage. With no stamina morphs for their class skills stamina dps is almost completely unfeasible for a sorcerer. Tanking is achievable, with hardened ward for a shield and some iffy self healing mechanics, but you're better off using one of the other classes, in particular a dragonknight. Sorcerer healing is possible, but they really offer very little over any of the other classes in this role. When it comes to soloing, sorcerers many pets can trivialize the process, allowing you freely leave the computer mid fight. Sorcerers should be bretons or altmer.

By roles then
Tank: DK
Stamina dps: DK, NB
Magicka dps: DK, NB, Sorc
Healer: Templar > DK >= NB

It should be noted that balance changes over time, however in TESO's case the theme has largely stayed the same. So don't expect your sorcerer to compare to a dragonknight any time soon. Hence, if you're not sure what class you'd prefer, you should play a dragonknight, as they are by far the best class in the game. Similarly if you are unsure of race, imperial is best due to their mix of health and stam buffs.

If you're not worried about end game PVE, you'll enjoy the solo game as any class/race combo. In fact, this part of the game you really can 'play it your way', any class or race combo can excel in any role. At the end of the day though there comes a point where you really want to actually be good at what you do, and being the anchor of your group because you chose the wrong class/race is not where you want to end up. If you want flexibility and validity, then it would be a shame to reach the end game with something that isn't a dragonknight. At best you'll be pigeonholed into a specific role and at worst have no place in groups. If you know you want to dps or heal, then consider a nightblade or a templar respectively. You should only role sorcerer if you think their mechanics (toggles, pets, random procs) look particularly fun compared the other classes.

Zlater

This is a little outdated, the glory days of the Dragon Knight god mode have ended ;D

Dreamo84

This post was a quite brilliant way to complain about the class balance.

Well done.

SafiyerAmitora

Triddle wrote: »

Dragon knights should be imperials, or dunmer if you want to use magicka and be a vampire (and if you're not a vampire you should definitely be a werewolf).

Triddle wrote: »

Nightblades have some flexibility in race choice but best be redguard or khajiit for stamina dps and breton or altmer for magicka dps.

Triddle wrote: »

Sorcerer in its current state is best avoided unless you're particularly enthusiastic, since its the worst at all roles.

1.) Nords also make for amazing DKs because of their dmg reduction passive.

2.) And Bosmer for NBs with their unbeatable stam regen.

3.) Sorcs are AMAZING magicka dps. It's just the survivability that's not quite on par with the other classes. Class heals aren't really that good, but their hardened ward (arguably one of the best shields in the game) can help. While I haven't done a whole lot with the class (yet), I know several powerful Sorcs who excel at DPS. Also, stam Sorcs can be vicious with a 2h-er. Seriously. They can be ruthless. 2h-er works well for Sorcs.

f047ys3v3n

Zlater wrote: »

This is a little outdated, the glory days of the Dragon Knight god mode have ended ;D

I agree with this. 1.6 brought the classes closer together in dps simply because it made stam dps generally superior to magica dps survivability aside and because few class abilities have stam morphs fewer differences exist. I suppose that is one way to easy mode class balance, just make it so that you don't use near as many class abilities.

The following is written from an endgame PVE standpoint. I realize none of it applies to PVP at all.

1.6 also did bring some significant nerfs to the dk with some of the ability changes whereas Templar was generally buffed. Since templar was the second best all around class pre 1.6 it is arguable that it overtook DK with that patch. Certainly Templar is still the only viable healer (there is no, no, no, no, substitute for breath of life which has good range, a big heal, and self targets a low health player). Now, Templar does better dps though before it's dps was better than people gave it credit for, and with some important ability changes it does much improved tanking. One of my friends is experimenting with these new pro-tanking changes. When these are compared to the DK anti-tanking and anti-group support changes (chain usability nerf with cc immune trash and chain yourself away mechanic, igneous weapons no longer buffs group, and corrosive armor no longer debuffs boss nerf) we believe templar is now a better tank than DK as a DK no longer offers meaningful group support while tanking but the templar has novas, etc.

The way I see it the DK used to have the best set of group support skills with igneous, chains, cinder storm, and corrosive. DK also used to be the hands down best tank. Now it is still the best DPS but has very little in the way of group support and is perhaps only the second best tank. It is strong but not the do all be all only answer in tamriell that it was in 1.5.

Templar now is not only the best healer but perhaps the best tank, offers probably the best group support abilities, and does competitive DPS. It may be the strongest class and is certainly the only one that would be accepted in a raid at any role. "Play the way you like" Templar is your name.

NB, to me, is less compelling in 1.6 because it was very dependent on a strong ultimate and fast ultimate recharge. I have also had trouble getting impressive sustained dps post 1.6 but have not spent much time on it because leveling my DK gives me both a DK and lots of Champion points. The most interesting thing about NB in 1.5 was the high heals while dps for magica and also high ult regen for almost constant mitigation. In 1.6 you are pushed twords stamina with a number of magica dps output nerfs. This is unfortunate because NB is not complete without the heals from funnel and sap and with stamina you have neither. To be honest, not much time was put into NB by the game designers and it shows. At launch most of it's abilities literally didn't work which is why you still don't have many NB's running about. The class did not get compelling until not long before 1.5 and perhaps it will take another 9 months to get it back to functional now that they have written entirely new mechanics. I consider is a nich class at the moment. It is not as broken as Sorc but it is full of holes.

As for sorc. I mothballed mine back in the 1.5 days for low DPS and lack of compelling group synergy and have little intention of resurrecting it now. So, the consensus seems to now be that for endgame PVE sorcs have to do stamina now or togglemancer and in either case they are only maybe fit for DPS. With stamina they lost much of the advantage they had in 1.5 because crit surge is pretty weaksauce now but hey, you can really stamina DPS with no class abilities at all so what are you complaining about. With the togglemancer thing the dps really isn't bad provided it is working. Of course if the boss decides to have big nasty AOE's, such as most trials bosses, the 90% less AOE damage that the summons take is worthless and they die because they aren't in the beam of light, can't get a pink bubble, like to stand in poison shards, etc. No skill can prevent any of this because they pretty much stand where they like and the amount of programming it would take to fix this is clearly not going to happen or the whole 90% AOE reduction thing wouldn't have happened. Bottom line, sorc is a gimmicky class whose gimmicks work in PVP but still don't for endgame PVE. Also, because crit surge no longer does much and you now wear tissue paper, enjoy dying more when you solo. Sorcerer was the class most changed by 1.6 receiving massive direct and indirect (by way of the force shock line) nerfs as well as different massive direct buffs. Realistically nothing a sorc did that somewhat worked in 1.5 will work now and many things that were stupid in 1.5 somewhat work now. I do not know why nerfs were handed to sorcs along with buffs as trials leaderboards clearly indicated that there was little to nerf. I think it had something to do with PVP maybe.

tplink3r1

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Zlater wrote: »

This is a little outdated, the glory days of the Dragon Knight god mode have ended ;D

Templar now is not only the best healer but perhaps the best tank, offers probably the best group support abilities, and does competitive DPS. It may be the strongest class and is certainly the only one that would be accepted in a raid at any role. "Play the way you like" Templar is your name.

Not with a magicka build.

Rair.Kitani

I think the OP got aware of a balance problem regarding races but his view on build/race/class choice is questionable imho.

If a race change will be allowed suddently most stamina dps/tank will become imperial .
Same goes for Magicka, there are only very few valuable choices when you have a build in mind. And there are races which aren't best pick for any build.
OP stated Khajiit would be a good choice for stamina dps and I have to disagree. The Carnage Skill equates to about 2%-3% dps increase while a 10% ressource pool increase leads to about 5% dps increase and a improved sustainability. Imperials aditionally recieve 12% health, so they can invest even more in stamina, which gives them a rough 20% stamina pool increase which converts to about 10% dps

For me the race choice should be more about which race you like, not wether you get an dps increase. Race choice should be irreversible but not the most defining part for your character stats