Need help to understand the race balance

medhma

From what I was reading in the forum, I have a few questions I wish to have an answer for them (sorry if they sound stupid I just wish to understand) :

1) The whole point for ZOS balancing was divide races either a sustain or damage, so for instance we have altmer for damage and breton for sustain for mag races and we have orc dmg and redguard sustain for stamina.
My understanding about damage races is: they do high damage over a short period of time, the high damage compensate the lack of sustain, in other word if they don't finish the fight fast they die. the sustain races on the other hand have better recovery which mean they can stay in a fight for longer, but in return they sacrifice damage.And the whole point of the balance was ensure that no race have them both (of course you can get dmg/sustain from food and armor).

My question is from the parse that people have been sharing the damage race and the sustain race have very close dps, if that is the case how is that balanced? shouldn't the damage race have an edge? I understand that 6 mil dummy is a short fight but in a real fight wouldn't be a sustain race a better choice?

2) I have seen a lot of post saying that breton is better and other saying no altmer are still better. Have anyone from the skilled players (not a good pvp player and don't have that many friends to test with on pts) tried a duel between a high elf and a breton? And if so is there a post or something with the result?
since both have very close dps and with breton better sustain and resistance wouldn't that make them better then high elf?

3) for stam race comparing orc to dark elf I fail to see a case where a dark elf is better then an orc, I'm wrong about that? I mean both are dmg race with very close stat but orc extra speed + extra health and health regain seems to me to make them a lot better in 1v1and a better choice overall?

4) I have seen the new racial, some are good other are okayish but some are bad, I don't like the altmer passive that give stam back since most of the time is useless in pve (maybe useful in moon hunter keep but most of time will return stam while not need it, not sure pvp side) and I see why bosmer player are angry as well don't have a single bosmer but still while most of the race get 4th racial with all the time active effect bosmer one is lacking , not sure about argonian seen some people complaining as well. Orc, on the other hand, seems to be too good with there passive.

My question is however, why some people are getting too defensive about balancing orc while other are getting too offensive toward players complaining about their race (altmer/bosmer ), I mean side by side comparaison between say orc, altmer it show clearly that orc are getting too much useful passive, since both are getting almost same stat. I even saw people saying it is ok to have orc op race, while they deny that for altmer and from a lore point of view altmer ruled over tamerial enslaving all other races, and they are regaining their empire during skyrim while orc didn't manage to maintain a single kingdom. Not trying to ask for any race to be op just pointing out what to me look hypocrisy.

one last thing I'm not biased toward high elf or any other race I already have 11 toons only 2 of them are high elf in fact I have a toon in each race aside from bosmer, but I'm still finding hard to understand some aspect of the balance.

Vapirko

Are you talking about PvP or PvE or both? The answer is multifaceted.

For 99% of the population there are multiple choices for PvE that are all viable. Between mechanics and avoiding damage, very few fights are straight dps burns and so the few percent difference won’t matter to anyone except progression guilds going for world first clears and fastest clears etc. There are only a couple of races that fall farther behind like Argonian and maybe Nord and Imperial. But again if you’re goal is just vet dungeons and maybe normal or some easier vet trials, pretty much any race is game. For those that want to do harder vet trials and go for scores then yes you’ll want to gravitate to the some of the better classes. It’s also true that some classes will ALWAYS be better than others. Prior to this it was Redgaurd for stamina and Orcs we’re pretty much bottom tier choice. Times change. Other classs need to be good for tanking or healing so to give those classes stats that make them top tier DPS as well would also make them OP.

For PvP there’s many more variables to concider, as people come up with all kinds of builds, and I honestly think any race will make good PvP builds. Dunmer will be awesome because it will allow you to effectively spec into either magicka or stamina. The only race that I’m not interested in are Argonians this patch, I’ll be race changing my one Argonian for sure.

VaranisArano

1) The point is more that, while each race has a different method they use to reach their DPS, at the top tier, the magicka damage races perform pretty similar to each other/stamina races perform similarly to each other. Some have higher sustain from their passives, some have higher damage from their passives. Now, at a certain point, all of that gets converts to raw damage in a DPS test. Your skills have to hit hard, yes, but you also have to sustain your rotation.

Which race is the most optimal now depends to some degree on how well the group can sustain. A race whose passives focus on damage but not sustain needs a group that can support them with sustain buffs to keep up their rotation. A race whose passives focus on sustain doesn't need the same dedicated support to sustain their rotation, but then may not reach the same high numbers as the high damage passive races if that group buffed sustain is present. Similarly, races with high sustain passives are more forgiving in their DPS rotation, whereas the high damage ones can potentially reach higher parses but mistakes will lower their parse quite a bit.

Having everyone be fairly close is indeed the goal, because short of the very top tier, individual player skill is going to have a bigger impact on performance. The real difference seems to be Consistency vs Potential. Races with Sustain passives have the benefit of Consistency. Races with Damage passives have Potential to get really high numbers, or also lower numbers if things don't go as planned.

So on an individual level, it may come down to looking at whether you'd rather have more sustain to fuel your regular rotation - Consistency, or whether you want higher damage in exchange for having to watch your sustain so you don't run out of resources to fuel your rotation - Potential.


2) Apples to Oranges.

Duels are PVP. Most people saying Breton is better than Altmer is talking about PVE.

For PVE, it comes down to Consistency vs Potential. Bretons, with higher sustain, makes them the Consistent race. This makes them more desirable for Healers, since with Healers you want consistency and lots of over-healing is not needed. It also makes them more desireable for anyone who wants Consistency as a Damage Dealer.

Now, for PVP, that's more complicated. Because yeah, Bretons has better magicka sustain and spell resistance, but Altmer now have some extra stamina recovery. As a Magicka player in Cyrodiil, it was usually the lack of stamina that got me killed. So its a true YMMV as to whether Breton or Altmer is better situationally in PVP. In a duel...I'd say that's down to player skills more than racial passives.


3) Orc is going to be the better Stamina Brawler in PVP, Tanky + damage = good. If that's what you want. PVP tends to be situational and very dependent on how you want to play.

I like the utility of my Dunmer for my StamWarden and MagDK, so I'll be keeping that race. If you use your off-stat a lot in PVP, the Dunmer bonuses might be good. Or if you prefer to play as a Vampire, Dunmer can offset some fire damage, very prevalent in PVP.

So its situational to how you like to play.


4) When it comes to balance, its pretty simple. "My stuff isn't strong enough and needs to be better. Everyone else's stuff is stronger than mine and should be nerfed."

Hypocritical? Yeah.

But this is what happens when ZOS balances PVE like its a game of "King of the Hill" and PVP like its "Rock, Paper, Scissors." Everyone wants to be meta and BIS because not being meta means regrinding for class/gear in order to chase that kill/death ratio or compete for spots on a trials team. For better or for worse, that's how the game works.

So when we look at end-game content like its a zero-sum game where there are only so many spots for DDs and healers, we start to see why everyone complains about rather small differences in the testing parses and wants their race/class to be better while nay-saying other race/class combos.

It may be hypocritical, or more kindly, certainly subjective. But the game's design puts players in that situation and so I'm not surprised that's the behavior that results.

medhma

@Vapirko and @VaranisArano, thank you both for taking time to reply both were good to read, I actually like dunmer as well I'm changing my mag nb to one that in fact the only change I'm making.

Uryel

VaranisArano wrote: »

Everyone wants to be meta and BIS because not being meta means regrinding for class/gear in order to chase that kill/death ratio or compete for spots on a trials team. For better or for worse, that's how the game works

That's how part of the game works for a fraction of its population.

Lots of people don't give a rat's arse about trials, and being top notch, so long as they can do what they enjoy doing without being too hindered. Heck, I still can't figure what "BIS" is supposed to mean, I understand its use in situation as meaning something like having the best race / skills / efficiency there is, but the word itself eludes me.

Personnaly, I don't care about how much more powerfull, or less powerfull, I'll be with the next update. There will be tweakings to be done, but I don't care that much. I don't use dungeon sets anyway, just crafted and overland, I don't PvP, I don't do trials. Adjusting will be easy, the trickiest part being to figure what I'll use to LOWER my nord tank's resists, seing he's just over the resist cap as it is, and won't benefit at all from his new racial passive if I don't.

However, I'm really, really crossed by the Bosmers losing their stealth. This brings nothing to the table in PvE, the stealth detection thingie has only marginal use in PvP, from what I've told, and it entirely removes a whole gameplay option from tons of players. Namely, those like me who don't give a damn about trials and top tier activities.

VaranisArano

Uryel wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Everyone wants to be meta and BIS because not being meta means regrinding for class/gear in order to chase that kill/death ratio or compete for spots on a trials team. For better or for worse, that's how the game works

That's how part of the game works for a fraction of its population.

Lots of people don't give a rat's arse about trials, and being top notch, so long as they can do what they enjoy doing without being too hindered. Heck, I still can't figure what "BIS" is supposed to mean, I understand its use in situation as meaning something like having the best race / skills / efficiency there is, but the word itself eludes me.

Personnaly, I don't care about how much more powerfull, or less powerfull, I'll be with the next update. There will be tweakings to be done, but I don't care that much. I don't use dungeon sets anyway, just crafted and overland, I don't PvP, I don't do trials. Adjusting will be easy, the trickiest part being to figure what I'll use to LOWER my nord tank's resists, seing he's just over the resist cap as it is, and won't benefit at all from his new racial passive if I don't.

However, I'm really, really crossed by the Bosmers losing their stealth. This brings nothing to the table in PvE, the stealth detection thingie has only marginal use in PvP, from what I've told, and it entirely removes a whole gameplay option from tons of players. Namely, those like me who don't give a damn about trials and top tier activities.

BIS means "best in slot", shorthand for the most optimal stuff available.

For the vast majority of game content, I'll agree that BIS and meta doesn't matter. For this group, the changes that impact the top tier DPS and such will be less important than the lore passives, like Bosmer stealth.

But for folks pushing top tier content or trying to figure out the most efficient way to clear vet trials, the BIS and meta does matter.

So that's why, among that crowd, you see a lot of complaining about changing buffs and nerfs for DPS and other roles every update.

Its a difference between what different players care about.

Vapirko

Uryel wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Everyone wants to be meta and BIS because not being meta means regrinding for class/gear in order to chase that kill/death ratio or compete for spots on a trials team. For better or for worse, that's how the game works

That's how part of the game works for a fraction of its population.

Lots of people don't give a rat's arse about trials, and being top notch, so long as they can do what they enjoy doing without being too hindered. Heck, I still can't figure what "BIS" is supposed to mean, I understand its use in situation as meaning something like having the best race / skills / efficiency there is, but the word itself eludes me.

Personnaly, I don't care about how much more powerfull, or less powerfull, I'll be with the next update. There will be tweakings to be done, but I don't care that much. I don't use dungeon sets anyway, just crafted and overland, I don't PvP, I don't do trials. Adjusting will be easy, the trickiest part being to figure what I'll use to LOWER my nord tank's resists, seing he's just over the resist cap as it is, and won't benefit at all from his new racial passive if I don't.

However, I'm really, really crossed by the Bosmers losing their stealth. This brings nothing to the table in PvE, the stealth detection thingie has only marginal use in PvP, from what I've told, and it entirely removes a whole gameplay option from tons of players. Namely, those like me who don't give a damn about trials and top tier activities.

Lowering resists is easy. I’d you don’t need it go medium armor for more damage, use damage or sustain sets, a different mundus if you happen to be using Lady, use different traits if you have reinforced prices, etc. It shouldn’t be hard to not hit cap.