Bosmer Racials need help.

Crescent · April 2014

PROPOSAL:
-Incorporate the resistances into the stamina regen boost. Optional.

-Eliminate the useless resistance bonuses and change to a straight 10% stamina boost or make it a 6/6% magicka/stamina split like dunmer.

- Change stealthy to increase stealth radius by 1/2/3 and decrease stamina cost of skills by 1/2/3%.

I think it's no mystery to people that Bosmer racials are too weak and too niche.

The only real stat bonus is 3% extra stamina, which is extremely weak when compared to Redguards and Imperials and even Orcs.

The 9% stamina regen is alright.

But the real stinker is the poison and disease resistance taking away from the stamina boost that could be a 10% stamina boost.

And stealthy. Stealthy's bonus is limited to bow users or Nightblades with daggers. It's a really restricted benefit.

Compare a Bosmer to a Redguard or Imperial stamina build. It's no contest. Redguards in particular grossly outclass Bosmer in a stamina based build.

Hell, look at Khajiit. 6% crit chance bonus and health regen, which are more universally applicable across all classes.

Meanwhile as a Bosmer battlemage the only benefit I get is the abysmal 3% stamina boost. The stamina regen is paltry compared to the stamina boosts and regen of the redguard, and the stamina pool and health steal from an imperial.

The magical side of my Bosmer battlemage is also outclassed by dunmer (better battlemage with robust bonuses to stamina and magicka) and as a caster completely outclassed by Bretons and Altmer.

The bossmer is simply shoehorned to stealth bow playstyle, which isn't even that good because that is outclassed by a Khajiit just from the stealth play standpoint (which is useless in PvE as the majority of attacks are out of stealth and thus the bonus doesn't apply).

And purely as a bow user, the Redguard, Dunmer, Khajit, Imperial, and Orsimer still outclass the Bosmer.

It seems like Bosmer are in the same boat of purely mediocre, too niche racials, except the Argonian at least gets a more useful 6% extra healing received. Both are still really bad otherwise.

jhaak714_ESO · April 2014

Crescent wrote: »

And stealthy. Stealthy's bonus is limited to bow users or Nightblades with daggers. It's a really restricted benefit.

>.<

I'm sorry but that's just not true. Those two options are just obviously more able to abuse sneak attack. Anyone can sneak up to something and smack it for a sneak attack powered hit.

Crescent · April 2014

jhaak714_ESO wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

And stealthy. Stealthy's bonus is limited to bow users or Nightblades with daggers. It's a really restricted benefit.

>.<

I'm sorry but that's just not true. Those two options are just obviously more able to abuse sneak attack. Anyone can sneak up to something and smack it for a sneak attack powered hit.

No.

Sneak attack does NOT work on staff spells or autoattacks, and since any 2H mostly has Critical Charge, charge attacks do NOT benefit from the sneak bonus.

Sneaking to a target to do a heavy attack is worse than a crystal fragment>critical charge opener.

A 2H battle mage will not have any 2h skills besides critical charge, Momentum (which is not a damage attack), and MAYBE reverse slash assuming they didn't take mage's fury already.

Dual Wield and bow are pretty much the options that use sneak attack.

The time you spend sneaking to a target is LESS DPS than using that time to apply damage, especially in a PvE setting against a boss or any mob that can survive burst.

jhaak714_ESO · April 2014

From the way you wrote the your original post it suggested that better sneaking and bonus sneak attack damage was only beneficial to nightblades and archers...

This isn't the same as you're second post on the subject where it's not optimal for all builds.

Keep in mind that stealthy still does boost the damage of Critical charge if you're activating it for an attack from behind your target, though the damage bonus isn't as apparent as what you'd see for, say, Teleport strike/ambush.

Crescent · April 2014

jhaak714_ESO wrote: »

From the way you wrote the your original post it suggested that better sneaking and bonus sneak attack damage was only beneficial to nightblades and archers...

This isn't the same as you're second post on the subject where it's not optimal for all builds.

Keep in mind that stealthy still does boost the damage of Critical charge if you're activating it for an attack from behind your target, though the damage bonus isn't as apparent as what you'd see for, say, Teleport strike/ambush.

It's not just suboptimak for my build. It's suboptimal for PvE period, and only shines in archer/DW builds. Most builds which a sorcerer won't use successfully as a nightblade.

Stealth based bonuses are pretty much useless in endgame for sustained PvE DPS scenarios, and basically you see Bosmer racials only being decent for a small fraction of weapon+build combos, while you have Redguards and Bretons and Dunmers and Altmers and Imperials, whose racial bonuses are far more universal and significantly more potent from a PvE sustained damage/tanking/healing perspective.

And as I said the sneak from behind bonus is never worth it because the time for positioning behind and sneaking for a marginal increase while doing 0 DPS in all that setup time is really, really bad in PvE. It's just not worth it.

A nightblade will use ambush/veiled strike, a sorcerer will open with crystal shards, pretty much every class has a potent ranged attack that they can open with and follow up for more total DPS unless you're a class like nightblade which can activate sneak multiple times during a fight.

The Bosmer racials are simply indefensible in light of what the other races' racials are.

jhaak714_ESO · April 2014

This really needs more perspective at higher levels. I can't look at this seriously because the argument cna be made with ANY race when you build against the racial stereotype (compare bosmer spell caster to khajiit/redguard spellcaster the khajiit theoretically gets a whopping 15% health regen bonus that would apply to their build).

IF racials turn out to play a real part of builds that is noticeable and not subject to the DR effects reached when over charging, then something should be done. As it stands now I see no reason to change things simply because someone's build is missing out on a few % of a resource.

EDIT:
This isn't simply <insert race>'s racials are sub par... this is a "My race's racials don't benefit my build as much as <insert min/max> would"

Crescent · April 2014

jhaak714_ESO wrote: »

This really needs more perspective at higher levels. I can't look at this seriously because the argument cna be made with ANY race when you build against the racial stereotype (compare bosmer spell caster to khajiit/redguard spellcaster the khajiit theoretically gets a whopping 15% health regen bonus that would apply to their build).

IF racials turn out to play a real part of builds that is noticeable and not subject to the DR effects reached when over charging, then something should be done. As it stands now I see no reason to change things simply because someone's build is missing out on a few % of a resource.

EDIT:
This isn't simply <insert race>'s racials are sub par... this is a "My race's racials don't benefit my build as much as <insert min/max> would"

In which case both Bosmer and Khajiit spellcasters are screwed, unless you build them for stamina weaponskills, in which the khajiit are better.

And in this comparison you dropped races like the Imperial, which can spec for either.

Even if you roll a Breton/Altmer stamina focused class, class skills would be used, so their magicka racials will still be useful.

The point I'm making that you're not grabbing is that even if we look at the Bosmer as a melee only stamina based nightblade, the best possible scenario, he's STILL OUTCLASSED by the Redguard and Khajiit and Imperialand Dunmer, because they have larger stamina bonuses and other melee perks.

Bosmers don't stand out in ANYTHING. There's no racial of theirs that you can compare to anotehr race and say "ok, that is really attractive over this other race".

And it's already been tested in veteran ranks. While you will likely overcharge in one or two categories, you won't overcharge on them all.

What that means is that some races will get the perk of needing to invest less stats, reach overcharged caps on two categories, and dump it on the remaining one.

More stats is still more stats. Even with the overcharged penalty, it's a reduction via diminishing returns, but they still get something more than a Bosmer's paltry 3% stamina, and 15% stamina regen isn't even that great by itself.

jhaak714_ESO · April 2014

Crescent wrote: »

The point I'm making that you're not grabbing is that even if we look at the Bosmer as a melee only stamina based nightblade, the best possible scenario, he's STILL OUTCLASSED by the Redguard and Khajiit and Imperialand Dunmer, because they have larger stamina bonuses and other melee perks.

oh no, I do get it... i'm saying that there's no book or manual that says racials have to be even 100%. Given the amount of leeway we have with making builds, it's inevitable that some would bank on bonuses associated with racial bonuses.

So really this whole discussion won't go beyond someone talking about how they perceive their oviously non-min/max character build falls short of the obvious min/max version. If you were really concerned with the min/max bonuses you would have just simply rolled one of those better options instead.

As it stands right now, I personally think bonus stamina and stamina regen are better than what khajiit gets, which is only a bonus to crit chance now which is rendered far less useful in the advent that it seems getting over 50% crit chance is apparently within the realm of possible (haven't seen a crit cap yet).

Crescent · April 2014

It's not even close to 80%. It's the gap between them that we're asking to get reduced. Bosmer, Nords, and Argonians have had a bunch of their racial stat budget allotted to specific resistances that are of marginal benefit at the cost of raw stamina/magica/resource regen racials which are of universal use.

Hell, even if they changed stealthy to decreased stamina costs and eliminated poison/disease resist for 12% stamina boost, I'd be happy with the change as at least one of my sorcerer's build options would be useful, at least my 2H skills would benefit even if my casting didn't.

It's very simple. Nords have always been an incredibly popular race, yet in this game the people who roll them are very few given their crappy racials.

When you get such a large skew of race rolling versus the race's popularity, you know something's wrong.

And they've acknowledged as much, hinting they are discussing racials. The Khajiit wouldn't have been nerfed if racial balance was so unimportant. Some people have deep attachment to aesthetics and don't want to feel punished in performance.

Nox_Aeterna · April 2014

Crescent wrote: »

It's not even 100%. It's the gap between them that we're asking to get reduced.

It's very simple. Nords have always been an incredibly popular race, yet in this game the people who roll them are very few given their crappy racials.

When you get such a large skew of race rolling versus the race's popularity, you know something's wrong.

And they've acknowledged as much, hinting they are discussing racials. The Khajiit wouldn't have been nerfed if racial balance was so unimportant. Some people have deep attachment to aesthetics and don't want to feel punished in performance.

I used to have a templar nord :P , till i deleted her and made a breton for the better racials.

Honestly , while i do like racials in the single player ES , i think they should not have added it to this MMO.

Argurios · April 2014

Like someone already said, Nothing matters until endgame, so lets wait until people have experienced more of the endgame for a while before worrying about racials.

tw1jaysin · April 2014

Bosmer should be the best race for bows. As it is now, all things being equal a Khajiit will outperform them because Carnage applies to bows.

valkaneer2b14_ESO · April 2014

Argurios wrote: »

Like someone already said, Nothing matters until endgame, so lets wait until people have experienced more of the endgame for a while before worrying about racials.

This is always the worst argument possible in every game. Wait till you wasted weeks lvling and finding every nook and cranny of the game, every lore book, every special area, just to find out..... Yep common sense rules to be correct, and the racials are indeed imba.

Reminds me of our engineer at my shop that ordered the wrong face mill that costed 800$ and didn't want to get in trouble for it...

Engineer- "Well just use it and see how it works" .... Me - "Um no, I told you I needed a 90 degree cutter not a 45" .... Engineer - "I'm the one who went to college for this stuff, and your going to use it for a while and try it out first"... 1 month later.... Me - "No I can not do that job I need a 90 Deg face mill all I have is this 45".... Engineer - "Oh well, you have already been using it for this long we can't return, guess your stuck with it"............ Plant Manager to my leader- "No we just bought him a face mill a few months ago, we can not afford to put out that kind of money for another"

I don't need to experience dropping an egg to know that it will break if I do.

Nugeneration · April 2014

As I said before I don't see how racials really matter in this game. Asking for %increase is the absolute worst thing you could do. With how easy all the caps are everyone will get them anyways. The only racials that stand to make any difference are the Increased %elemental damage and potion increase etc.

So what if someone uses their racial to cap their magic regen? I can just use light armor skills to hit it just the same. Same goes with stamina etc.

Mantiss · April 2014

The folks complaining about racials are the same ones who don't understand how the soft caps in game function. I strongly suggest that everyone whining here get the mod(s) that let you see where your stat is compared to the soft cap.

My Sorc tank easily and always soft caps his armor, hps, resist AND magika regen. While my NB continually caps stamina and health regen while being just under the armor and resist cap. These are of course before any short term skills/buffs that further increase these stats.

Play what you want since all of the racials boil down to 1, MAYBE 2 hits + or minus come end game for either surviving or killing. Which is why armor passives, class passives, weapon passives, food, potions, enchants and rings/amulets all balance it out.

nova.terratrb14_ESO · April 2014

I like my racial bonuses, leave them as is.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · April 2014

I personnaly see not a single problem with Racials. Yup every +10% stats racial are powerfull, until you get close to the soft caps (and I'm sure this will happen very quickly when we will be full of relics).

Yeah, Bosmer don't get the same extra stamina bonus as the other races, but they do have the extra Disease/Poison resist wich is pretty common (Spiders, Spider Daedras, Snakes, Zombies, Necromancer Boss DoT, and coming soon alchemy poisons).

The extra stamina and stamina recovery is handy no matter how you play, stamina can be used for sneaking, dodge, block, etc.

And finaly Stealthy while it is more of an opener perk, it alows you to sneak behind people very close even if you wear heavy or light armors. And even if you are a spellcaster, it is still very handy for PvP.

dermottib14_ESO · April 2014

Yea but Bosmers are the best looking race. Other races sacrfice looks for these stats. Seems an even trade to me. The morale boost alone makes me a better player when on a bosmer. If anything, they are OP

Stx · April 2014

Stealthy should just be changed, it gives Bosmer and Khajiit an unfair advantage in PvP over other races, when getting the opening strike in a stealth combat situation can be huge.

As for stat bonuses, they really need to balance the racials better. If you want to play a magicka user as redguard, orc, bosmer, imperial, nord, or khajiit, you are just screwed. I hate feeling inefficient playing a character with useless racials, especially in this game with some pretty big stat boosts there.

In before all the "racials dont matter at endgame" and, "softcaps make racials irrelevant" people. Stat budget is stat budget. An altmer who caps his magicka/regen 10% easier than a khajiit will have that many extra stat points to boost his health or spell cost reduction or spell power or any of the other useful stats, the khajiit gets nothing.

williams226 · April 2014

AS bosmer are meant to be experts with Bow, I would like to see a similar racial that Kats get a crit on mellee, but bosmer to get a crit on bows.

6% crit chance for us wood elfs using a bow would be awesome.

mblythe21b14_ESO · April 2014

This may be off the mark... but isnt this why there are different races? So you can pick a race that would best fit the character you are building?

Why would they change anything on the Bosmer to be like any other race when I can just pick any other race?

Skarzog · April 2014

mblythe21b14_ESO wrote: »

This may be off the mark... but isnt this why there are different races? So you can pick a race that would best fit the character you are building?

Why would they change anything on the Bosmer to be like any other race when I can just pick any other race?

I am of the mindset that races should be a cosmetic decision, allow players to play the races they want without having to worry about maximizing their gameplay via racials.

I also don't particularly like racials being so powerful, it forces players to make very important decision at the character creation screen without even possibly knowing they have.

I created a Bosmer and thought nothing of it. In my mind I wanted to play a bow/dw NB and felt wood elf fit that role quite nicely. Now that I am closing on my leveling experience and have more knowledge of the class and game, I severely regret my decision. Not having that 7% extra stamina other races have is a pretty heavy loss. I can cap my stamina but its resources I could have placed elsewhere wasted on poison resist.

robertbmilesb14_ESO · April 2014

" the races they want without having to worry about maximizing their gameplay via racials."

It is you who does the worrying.

Skarzog · April 2014

robertbmilesb14_ESO wrote: »

" the races they want without having to worry about maximizing their gameplay via racials."

It is you who does the worrying.

Don't really understand your point, if you are implying you don't really care then what do racials matter to you either way?

If you don't care about optimizing your character that fine, but this is not a single player game and other people might. If they want this to become a serious MMO and sustain players beyond the leveling process they will need to consider these issues as well. And the reality is some races are vastly superior to others at the moment.