Comparing Altmer vs. Breton (by the numbers)

MLGProPlayer

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

StarOfElyon

This change is extremely upsetting to me. Do they want people to play with their precious monster sets? Is that what these changes are meant to push people towards?

Derra

Depends entirely what they give altmer in return.

No point in speculating really. They were pretty spot on with the initial changes - they might be spot on with giving altmer a more distinct feeling without weakening it compared to breton.

Olupajmibanan

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

And now do a comparison with Khajit which offers more dmg than Altmer, but his sustain passive is left untouched.

MLGProPlayer

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

And now do a comparison with Khajit which offers more dmg than Altmer, but his sustain passive is left untouched.

Crit% is harder to equalize with spell damage, but they have been parsing higher than Altmer in templar and NB tests so far. It makes zero sense that the third best magicka DPS race is getting nerfed. It shows that ZOS hasn't done any actual testing of the races.

Olupajmibanan

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

And now do a comparison with Khajit which offers more dmg than Altmer, but his sustain passive is left untouched.

Crit% is harder to equalize with spell damage, but they have been parsing higher than Altmer in templar and NB tests so far. It makes zero sense that the third best magicka DPS race is getting nerfed. It shows that ZOS hasn't done any actual testing of the races.

You may equalize crit and spell damage/magicka by @Asayre formulas for ability tooltips.

Khajit crit: (0,08 * critical damage) / (1 + crit chance before adding Khajit passive * (critical damage))
Critical damage is 0,5 + Elfborn + 0,1 * Minor Force uptime + 0,3 * Major Force uptime + 0,1 if you are Templar/NB

Altmer spell damage)/magicka
(2000 * (1 + buffs) + 258 * (1 + buffs) * 10,5) / (max magicka before altmer passive + max spell damage before altmer passive * 10,5)
Max magicka and max spell damage should be used after buffs.

Ohhgrizyyy

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

And now do a comparison with Khajit which offers more dmg than Altmer, but his sustain passive is left untouched.

You're complaining about 75 recovery? Khajit is ment to be able to be placed as any build. Dps, healer or tank

Olupajmibanan

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS said they are removing Altmer sustain because Altmer have too much damage and don't deserve sustain passives. This goes in the face of actual testing which shows Breton very clearly pulling ahead of Altmer in DPS.

So let's compare the 2 races as they are currently on PTS using basic math:

Spell damage:

Here is where ZOS' balance approach is flawed. They are looking at values on paper, outside of any actual context.

Altmer: +258 spell damage
Breton: +0 spell damage

Looking at this, someone not familiar with the game would assume that Altmer deal more damage. This is of course false. Anybody who actually plays the game would know that sustain is a factor in determining DPS too. Let's compare sustain now.

Sustain:

Breton: +7% cost reduction, +100 magicka recovery
Altmer: +192 magicka recovery (575/6)

Effective magicka recovery:

Breton: +500 (assuming that the average cost of a skill is 3k, they save ~200 magicka every second, or 400 every 2 seconds + 100 from their flat recovery bonus)
Altmer: +192

As you can see, there is a huge descrepency between the two when it comes to sustain. What does this mean? It means that Altmer need to slot a recovery glyph in order to sustain endgame fights. Bretons, on the other hand, don't need to slot a recovery glyph since they have that sustain built into their passives. This means they can slot a Berserker glyph instead. Now let's look at their spell damage numbers again.

Spell damage (again):

Altmer: +258
Breton: +452

All of a sudden, Breton has +200 spell damage on Altmer. Now, this obviously isn't a flat +200 buff since the recovery glyph deals 4k magicka damage too, but it's still enough of a difference to put Breton slightly on top (which was fine).

So, how is ZOS addressing this (assuming anything needs to be addressed, which it really doesn't)? By nerfing Altmer sustain....

And now do a comparison with Khajit which offers more dmg than Altmer, but his sustain passive is left untouched.

You're complaining about 75 recovery? Khajit is ment to be able to be placed as any build. Dps, healer or tank

It's a complaint about their reasoning. They take away Altmer and Orc sustain with reasoning that no race should offer high damage and sustain on top of that. But Khajit is exactly that.

John_Falstaff

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Olupajmibanan

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Khajit has 75 mag recovery. Altmer is going to have none. Khajit is parsing higher than Altmer. Where is justice in that.

Not even saying that it's a lorebreaking disaster. Khajits, better casters than High Elves.

John_Falstaff

@Olupajmibanan , lots of people jumping the gun here; rep meeting didn't disclose exact changes that are going to happen, just conveyed overall intentions - I would imagine that altmers will not be left without compensation. It's best to wait until patch notes for today's update. In fact, I'm not sure how big of a role Spell Recharge played in PTS parses of the altmer, because I think that during those comparisons only Breton was running damage glyph instead of absorb. If they'll give altmers a small flat recovery bonus instead of proc condition, I think it would make them more versatile.

As for lore breaking, we've been here before. Lore-wise, khajiits are also spell-casters, some subspecies in particular (Alfiq, Dagi, Dagi-raht), and during broadcast, ZOS clearly stated that new passives are meant to encompass the whole racial diversity of khajiits. (More so that alfiq will be present in Elsweyr chapter.) Not sure what else to say here - you heard it on the stream right from the horse's mouth.

Kulvar

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

You're complaining about 75 recovery? Khajit is ment to be able to be placed as any build. Dps, healer or tank

The issue is that Khajiit parse top 3 for DPS while supposed to be jack-of-all-trades. A jack-of-all-trades should parse 4th at most.

Kolzki

Khajiit parses have been highly variable compared to other races. Sometimes they out dps an altmer but often not.

And it’s very class dependent. On a magplar khajiit perform well thanks to the class’s very good sustain and a crit damage bonus. This is not so true on other classes.

luen79rwb17_ESO

The way I see it ZOS is considering all gameplay styles with these reworks. Altmer is aiming towards the pro minmax trial players who are extremely eficient on their resources and sinergies. Maybe that's why they don't do well on noob-friendly solo dummy parses?

Joosef_Kivikilpi

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Also... Breton spell cost reduction inherently nerfs spell cost reduction glyphs as well. That passive isn't buffed by anything else, so it is static.

bardx86

So riddle me this ZOS. If you nerf altmer how many races will give you stamina regen/reduction vs magicka regen/reduction? Seems balanced right?

Kolzki

The difference largely comes down to whether Breton or Altmer can use blue food or get away without a sustain glyph. Currently Breton can and Altmer can’t, as the op describes in detail.

The important thing is how the passives work with the rest of the build. On a given class and race is sustain good enough to use blue food or drop the sustain glyph? How many health enchants does it need to get to the minimum health threshold or can it stack entirely into damage?

The story is similar for stamina Bosmer having very high dps despite looking like a low dps sustain char in their passives.

Also worth keeping in mind that we are talking about a few hundred dps on a dummy that doesn’t hit back and has no mechanics. Breton and Altmer were pretty well balanced already on pts.

riberion

Wait, when/where did ZOS say they were taking sustain away from Altmer?

Edit: I found it.

kojou

I don't see why they would remove the sustain from Altmer either, but whatever... it wasn't that much magicka any way.

danno8

lol, are we ready to disassociate big stat buffs from races yet and finally move to a selectable group of buffs based on your "Birth-sign" or whatever.

IonicKai

I think ZoS is dramatically underestimating the importance of sustain to hit high dps. All the raw damage in the world means nothing if you are stuck doing significantly weaker heavy attacks without casting abilities for the duration of them just to try to get resources back. This plays almost too big of a roll since they keep nerfing sustain into the ground by increasing ability costs and other measures.

Anhedonie

Can we get an actuall look at patch notes and test the changes, before we create more posts about this issue which might not be an issue? Since, we have no real data on new racials...

Rex-Umbra

Fake news

Irylia

Or just do beserk + 3 spell glyphs and don’t suck at sustaining with recasts/missed synergies

Juhasow

What's the point of doing math for the things that will get changed in next few hours or so ? How about we wait for patch notes and then make some math ?

MLGProPlayer

Juhasow wrote: »

What's the point of doing math for the things that will get changed in next few hours or so ? How about we wait for patch notes and then make some math ?

ZOS said they believe that Altmer were overperforming and needed nerfs. I'm just pointing out the flaw in their logic. Altmer were already behind Breton and Khajiit in testing. This post explains why that is the case, despite them "looking stronger on paper".

joaaocaampos

My suggestions are:

High Elf

• Spell Recharge: Restore 575 385 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever is higher, after activating a Class Ability. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds. Increases your damage done and reduces damage taken by 5% while you are using an ability with a cast or channel time.

IronWooshu

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Khajit has 75 mag recovery. Altmer is going to have none. Khajit is parsing higher than Altmer. Where is justice in that.

Not even saying that it's a lorebreaking disaster. Khajits, better casters than High Elves.

Khajiits literally have no magical affinity, while some can learn the ways of magicka they could never become powerful mages but ZOS doesn't care about lore apparently. It's what many Khajiit players wanted so they gave it to them.

MLGProPlayer

IronWooshu wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Khajit has 75 mag recovery. Altmer is going to have none. Khajit is parsing higher than Altmer. Where is justice in that.

Not even saying that it's a lorebreaking disaster. Khajits, better casters than High Elves.

Khajiits literally have no magical affinity, while some can learn the ways of magicka they could never become powerful mages but ZOS doesn't care about lore apparently. It's what many Khajiit players wanted so they gave it to them.

But most importantly, these buffs help sell the new expansion.

Darkonflare15

IronWooshu wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think that calculations in the starting post omit the fact that flat buff from altmer (and 100 from breton) are eligible for recovery percentage bonuses, while the flat buff from 7% cost reduction is not subject to any multipliers, so the gap will be smaller than presented. But of course still there. In addition, I think it's underplaying the damage that infused absorb magicka glyph can do - for the front bar, infused fire is already preferred to berserker for maximum single target damage, and absorb isn't dramatically weaker.

@Olupajmibanan , have you seen parses from PTS? Khajiit is the opposite of good sustain - parses are high, but they're unsustainable even with full group support (and people testify that spread is high specifically because of bad sustain and having to put in heavy attacks during execute phase when cost of each skill cast is so high).

Khajit has 75 mag recovery. Altmer is going to have none. Khajit is parsing higher than Altmer. Where is justice in that.

Not even saying that it's a lorebreaking disaster. Khajits, better casters than High Elves.

Khajiits literally have no magical affinity, while some can learn the ways of magicka they could never become powerful mages but ZOS doesn't care about lore apparently. It's what many Khajiit players wanted so they gave it to them.

Where in the lore does it say that? Players always complain that Zos does not know the lore but say stuff without knowing the lore. It like a blind person complaing that somebody else is blind to what they know but forget that the person they are complaining about knows more about it then them. Also they seem to forget that the lore has to work for the game not the other way. There never been weapon crit and spell crit in any other elder scrolls game. So in base stats Altmer are still better mages than Khajiit with raw stats. Khajits are doing more damage due to crit damage via the Major force buff and class base passive increase critical damage buffs that is all.

MLGProPlayer

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_Gilliam
@KenaPKK
@Joy_Division

Since ZOS obviously didn't do any testing, maybe this post will help you out. Also tagging the class reps in case ZOS ignores this (likely).