Orcs Racial Passives Need Another Pass

ATreeGnome

I want to start by saying that I think the recent overhaul on racial passives was a huge step in the right direction and that racial passives are definitely in a better place than they were before the changes. I think that, overall, ZoS did a great job closing the power gap between all of the races. That said, there are clearly races that are outliers on both ends of the spectrum. On the top end of the spectrum, are Orcs.

For the sake of ease and simplicity I'm going to compare Orcs to the races that have bonuses that can be compared most directly, so Dunmer and Altmer.

Let's start with the maximum weapon/spell damage bonuses:

Orcs - 258 Weapon Damage + 12% sprint cost reduction and 10% increased sprint speed
Altmer - 258 Spell Damage
Dunmer - 258 Weapon and Spell Damage

In terms of raw DPS potential, Orc and Altmer and evenly matched while Dunmer take a very slight advantage. On top of that Orcs get a utility bonus that is powerful in PvP and provides a marginal sustain bonus in PvE fights that reward sprinting, such as pad transitions during Rhakkat in MoL. So this is pretty even with Orcs getting an overall utility advantage.

Next let's look at their max attribute bonuses.

Orcs - 2000 Stamina
Altmer - 2000 Magicka
Dunmer -1875 Magicka and Stamina

In terms of raw DPS potential this is pretty even. Dunmer are at a slight disadvantage but they get option to switch between stamina and magicka builds without taking a big loss in damage potential. This seems pretty evenly balanced to me.

Finally let's look at their defensive/utility passives.

Orcs - 1000 Health and heal for 600 once every 4 seconds when they deal damage with a weapon ability
Altmer - Restore 640 magicka or stamina,which ever is your lower maximum attribute, when you cast a class ability once every 6 seconds, also reduce damage taken while using channeled or cast time ability by 5%.
Dunmer -2310 Resistance to fire damage and immunity to burning

This is where the problem is. For Altmer and Dunmer, the defensive and utility bonuses they get do not enable them to build for more damage. For Orcs, they can leverage that 1k health to get either more sustain and/or more maximum stamina even thought they already have more maximum stamina than the next closest, comparable race. If you compare Dunmer and Altmer, Altmer clearly do not get such a large advantage for magicka builds.

The most obvious example of how Orcs can leverage this advantage for more damage, is for Stamina Necromancers. The standard endgame PvE DPS builds for Stamina Necromancers use Lavafoot Soup-and-Saltrice to provide sufficient stamina regeneration while still providing the most maximum stamina possible. Typically, players will use a combination of armor enchantments and attribute points to reach at least 16k maximum health for most PvE content. If I take an Orcs and a Dunmer, this means that the Orcs start 1k health closer to that minimum, which equated to about 900 stamina worth of attribute points. This means that Orcs get a total advantage of about 1025 maximum stamina over the next most comparable race for stamina DPS. It gets even worse when you take percentage scaling bonuses in to account. Again, looking at the gap between Altmer and Dunmer, it's nowhere near this wide.

So what do I propose?

Remove the Orc Maximum Health Bonus.

The healing bonus could be doubled to help compensate for the loss and maintain the theme of Orcs being tough and rugged. Or give them a bonus to physical and/or spell resistance. Or give them more healing taken again. Anything that can't be directly traded for more damage bonuses.

They will still be the best race for stamina DPS. I'm fine with them being the best stamina DPS race. They will still be one of the most powerful choices for PvP. The gap just needs to be smaller.

Vapirko

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

JobooAGS

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

The whole purpose of the racial balances is to remove situations where only 1 race is used. Going from 100% redguard to 100% orc indicates a failure, not a success. Also Orc is used in pvp extensively. The sprint and dmg passives arent something to laugh at

Vapirko

JobooAGS wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

The whole purpose of the racial balances is to remove situations where only 1 race is used. Going from 100% redguard to 100% orc indicates a failure, not a success. Also Orc is used in pvp extensively. The sprint and dmg passives arent something to laugh at

Because the math will never be perfectly equal all variables considered 1 race will be used for the majority of PvE dps builds. If you nerf orc it will be something else or orc will still be the best even, as people have already shown, it’s only about a couple of percent worth of dps or less. It’s used in PvP sure, but people also use Nords and yes even wood elves. Just because the majority of players jump on whatever bandwagon is shown on YT doesn’t mean the races aren’t pretty equal. Orc just happens to be a jack of all trades race at this time. You’re splitting hairs really.

SodanTok

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

Spoken like true Orc :P Fact is, it takes about 5s to prove which race is simply best and there is no advantage (in PVE) to pick any other. In that sense I would say they failed to balance races correctly. Another fact is, that the only thing that separates Orc from other races, which are all on nearly equal ground is the added stat density of health passive. If they were stripped of it in favor of something more unique (and something not affecting pve dps) they would still remain on same level in PVE as the second best option. I think that is enough of proof.

Vapirko

SodanTok wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

Spoken like true Orc :P Fact is, it takes about 5s to prove which race is simply best and there is no advantage (in PVE) to pick any other. In that sense I would say they failed to balance races correctly. Another fact is, that the only thing that separates Orc from other races, which are all on nearly equal ground is the added stat density of health passive. If they were stripped of it in favor of something more unique (and something not affecting pve dps) they would still remain on same level in PVE as the second best option. I think that is enough of proof.

Won’t argue with you there I’ve been an orc for PvE and PvP since I started 4+ years ago. Red guard was always top dps but a good margins and no one said ***. Once it went orc people got their whine on. And you know what? I’d give up some health for something more unique and useful any day. Not all of it but certainly a good chunk. I could benefit from more phys resist more stam regen even more mag regen or even more sprint reduction. My main point is that people are bitching over a couple of percent dps on a target dummy in optimal situations. I bet you and the OP couldn’t even tell the dps difference between orc and redguard on a dummy never mind in an actual raid.

MartiniDaniels

It was well-known and pretty obvious on racials PTS. Also proved by ton of parses, where orc was notably better then khajiit even on NB. But you saw stamina necromancer-orc in Elsweyr trailer. That's all part of some ZOS's plan, be it selling of tokens or rising orc population.

Ragnarock41

I don't think its fair to give sustain races also the best DPS. So therefore I'm fine with Orc having a tad more max stats than others.

ATreeGnome

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

Actually, it really is that simple. Orcs have more stat density than comparable races and no real trade offs for it. If I take the numbers you gave for your PvE buid but swap your Orc for a Dunmer, then we still have the exact same problem that I described. You get more damage and more health. If you can't trade any of your health for damage on your build as a Orc then you can't do it for a Dunmer either, except you still have less health. The difference is far more obvious for standard PvE builds, despite your unfounded assertion that I "couldn’t even tell the dps difference between orc and redguard on a dummy never mind in an actual raid".

Just because you would prefer a different set of bonuses to go with your PvP build does not mean that Orcs are balanced.

ATreeGnome

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't think its fair to give sustain races also the best DPS. So therefore I'm fine with Orc having a tad more max stats than others.

I agree with you, which is why I'm comparing races that have no sustain bonuses to Orcs. As I stated in my post, Orcs will still have more max stats even with their health bonus removed. I'm totally in favor of them having the best stats for stamina DPS. I just think that the gap between them and Dunmer should be the same as the gap between Dunmer and Altmer. If Orcs are truly balanced then that means that Altmer should have something comperable to a 1k health bonus too. The two can be directly compared in terms of stat density and the difference is irrefutable.

Vermethys

Trading their 1k health bonus for a reversed version of Breton's Spell Resistance passive might be a fair change, I think (without the recovery boost).

MartiniDaniels

ATreeGnome wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't think its fair to give sustain races also the best DPS. So therefore I'm fine with Orc having a tad more max stats than others.

I agree with you, which is why I'm comparing races that have no sustain bonuses to Orcs. As I stated in my post, Orcs will still have more max stats even with their health bonus removed. I'm totally in favor of them having the best stats for stamina DPS. I just think that the gap between them and Dunmer should be the same as the gap between Dunmer and Altmer. If Orcs are truly balanced then that means that Altmer should have something comperable to a 1k health bonus too. The two can be directly compared in terms of stat density and the difference is irrefutable.

Problem is that orc with lava-foot soup has better sustain then redguard and bosmer with their rabbits&vegetables

Ragnarock41

ATreeGnome wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't think its fair to give sustain races also the best DPS. So therefore I'm fine with Orc having a tad more max stats than others.

I agree with you, which is why I'm comparing races that have no sustain bonuses to Orcs. As I stated in my post, Orcs will still have more max stats even with their health bonus removed. I'm totally in favor of them having the best stats for stamina DPS. I just think that the gap between them and Dunmer should be the same as the gap between Dunmer and Altmer. If Orcs are truly balanced then that means that Altmer should have something comperable to a 1k health bonus too. The two can be directly compared in terms of stat density and the difference is irrefutable.

I don't give a damn about PvE DPS, however I do not see how nerfing the 1k health serves as a DPS nerf. Wouldn't it be better, lets say ; If they cut some max stamina?

ATreeGnome

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

ATreeGnome wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't think its fair to give sustain races also the best DPS. So therefore I'm fine with Orc having a tad more max stats than others.

I agree with you, which is why I'm comparing races that have no sustain bonuses to Orcs. As I stated in my post, Orcs will still have more max stats even with their health bonus removed. I'm totally in favor of them having the best stats for stamina DPS. I just think that the gap between them and Dunmer should be the same as the gap between Dunmer and Altmer. If Orcs are truly balanced then that means that Altmer should have something comperable to a 1k health bonus too. The two can be directly compared in terms of stat density and the difference is irrefutable.

I don't give a damn about PvE DPS, however I do not see how nerfing the 1k health serves as a DPS nerf. Wouldn't it be better, lets say ; If they cut some max stamina?

Currently stamcros are the best class for PvE DPS. They have have more sustain issues that other stamina classes so the solution has been to run Max Stamina +Stamina regen food. If you do this though you still need to have enough maximum health to be able to avoid being 1 shot in trials. Typically 16k health is considered the "safe" minimum health to run. So players will use a combination of attribute points and health enchantments on armor to get to this point.

So you are an Orc you can put 1k less worth of attribute points in to health than a Dunmer needs. This equates to about 900 stamina worth of attribute points that an Orc will have left over that a Dunmer won't. This is in addition to already getting 125 more stamina from the racial passives. Even if you don't care about PvE DPS, this still demonstrates that Orcs have a calculable advantage over every race with comparable bonuses.

Nerfing their max stamina would hurt Orcs for classes and builds that don't run Lavafoot Soup and Saltrice as their food, which is not my goal. Nerfing max health will serve as a more targeted nerf but still leave them as the best race for stamina DPS, just not by such a wide margin.

SodanTok

Vapirko wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

Spoken like true Orc :P Fact is, it takes about 5s to prove which race is simply best and there is no advantage (in PVE) to pick any other. In that sense I would say they failed to balance races correctly. Another fact is, that the only thing that separates Orc from other races, which are all on nearly equal ground is the added stat density of health passive. If they were stripped of it in favor of something more unique (and something not affecting pve dps) they would still remain on same level in PVE as the second best option. I think that is enough of proof.

Won’t argue with you there I’ve been an orc for PvE and PvP since I started 4+ years ago. Red guard was always top dps but a good margins and no one said ***. Once it went orc people got their whine on. And you know what? I’d give up some health for something more unique and useful any day. Not all of it but certainly a good chunk. I could benefit from more phys resist more stam regen even more mag regen or even more sprint reduction. My main point is that people are bitching over a couple of percent dps on a target dummy in optimal situations. I bet you and the OP couldn’t even tell the dps difference between orc and redguard on a dummy never mind in an actual raid.

Everyone complained about redguard being OP, more than they do about Orc. But by the time race patch happened it has been already like 20 months of redguard BiS to a point where literally everyone gave up and played redguard.

We are just entering new phase. Soon people will be tired too and everyone will play Orc. It already feels pointless to even try to play different race on the new class - necromancer.
Since you understand only PVP let me present you the data in simpler form:
Switching from Orc Necromancer to Bosmer Necro, you trade 395 weapon damage to get 178 recovery and 480 stamina.
Switching from Orc Necro to Dunmer Necro, you trade 1190 stamina to get nothing

I can tell you that difference is much more visible in PVE than PVP yet I think any PVP player would consider that difference important

Grandma

Vapirko wrote: »

JobooAGS wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Actually it’s not really that simple. For example in PvP I can’t leverage my extra health at all if I want the sustain from the food which I need. Basically I’m stuck at 28k health even though I’d gladly give up about 1-2k in favor of more stam, stam recovery or mag recovery. In fact I’d gladly trade say 500 health and the health return for stam or mag return. Also Orcs are in the no way the dominating race in PvP and in PvE there will always be a top DPS race. It was redguard for years now it’s orc. So imo there’s really no reason to go back and adjust races rn.

The whole purpose of the racial balances is to remove situations where only 1 race is used. Going from 100% redguard to 100% orc indicates a failure, not a success. Also Orc is used in pvp extensively. The sprint and dmg passives arent something to laugh at

Because the math will never be perfectly equal all variables considered 1 race will be used for the majority of PvE dps builds. If you nerf orc it will be something else or orc will still be the best even, as people have already shown, it’s only about a couple of percent worth of dps or less. It’s used in PvP sure, but people also use Nords and yes even wood elves. Just because the majority of players jump on whatever bandwagon is shown on YT doesn’t mean the races aren’t pretty equal. Orc just happens to be a jack of all trades race at this time. You’re splitting hairs really.

Not necessarily. On mag races, things are pretty even. High elf is competitive with Breton, and dark elf is still good, while khajiit is a lower outlier that can still be very competitive. the difference between high elf and breton depends on player skill and sustain; I do think breton is a bit too forgiving in the cost reduction and recovery passives, but they both have different approaches depending on the preferred playstyle and you typically see a healthy mixture for mag races.

that could have been orc and redguard, but if you pick orc sustain is a joke anyways because of that strat (in pve anyway) so there's no clear competition, and the other races don't really come close.

MehrunesFlagon

Vermethys wrote: »

Trading their 1k health bonus for a reversed version of Breton's Spell Resistance passive might be a fair change, I think (without the recovery boost).

Get rid of health or sprint speed and give regen.

WrathOfInnos

Mostly agree, but there are cases where resistances can be directly considered as more health. The Dunmer Fire Resistance for example, allows them to build for about 5% less health than other races if they know that the primary source of damage is fire based (Yolnakriin and Assembly General are probably the two best examples). It’s certainly a niche passive though. The Breton Spell Resistance (for things like vMoL and vCR) or Nord Spell and Physical are much more broadly useful.

The Altmer off-resource sustain is simply garbage in PVE. They effectively only get 2 racial passives, which is why I ended up race changing my main Altmer after the rebalance. I’d actually much prefer to see Altmer receive a good 3rd passive than for Orc to be nerfed, even if it meant I’d need to race change back.

ATreeGnome

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Mostly agree, but there are cases where resistances can be directly considered as more health. The Dunmer Fire Resistance for example, allows them to build for about 5% less health than other races if they know that the primary source of damage is fire based (Yolnakriin and Assembly General are probably the two best examples). It’s certainly a niche passive though. The Breton Spell Resistance (for things like vMoL and vCR) or Nord Spell and Physical are much more broadly useful.

The Altmer off-resource sustain is simply garbage in PVE. They effectively only get 2 racial passives, which is why I ended up race changing my main Altmer after the rebalance. I’d actually much prefer to see Altmer receive a good 3rd passive than for Orc to be nerfed, even if it meant I’d need to race change back.

The fire resistance can be a pretty strong passive but it's not universal enough to reliably build around it like you can with an actual health bonus. I would like to see the Altmer resource return passive reworked as well but not in such a way to give them any more of an offensive advantage over Dunmer - I think they are really well balanced in that respect. Something like a shock equivalent of the Dunmer flame resistance passive would seem pretty fair, though perhaps not very interesting.

WrathOfInnos

ATreeGnome wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Mostly agree, but there are cases where resistances can be directly considered as more health. The Dunmer Fire Resistance for example, allows them to build for about 5% less health than other races if they know that the primary source of damage is fire based (Yolnakriin and Assembly General are probably the two best examples). It’s certainly a niche passive though. The Breton Spell Resistance (for things like vMoL and vCR) or Nord Spell and Physical are much more broadly useful.

The Altmer off-resource sustain is simply garbage in PVE. They effectively only get 2 racial passives, which is why I ended up race changing my main Altmer after the rebalance. I’d actually much prefer to see Altmer receive a good 3rd passive than for Orc to be nerfed, even if it meant I’d need to race change back.

The fire resistance can be a pretty strong passive but it's not universal enough to reliably build around it like you can with an actual health bonus. I would like to see the Altmer resource return passive reworked as well but not in such a way to give them any more of an offensive advantage over Dunmer - I think they are really well balanced in that respect. Something like a shock equivalent of the Dunmer flame resistance passive would seem pretty fair, though perhaps not very interesting.

IMO Dunmer should have slightly more Spell and Weapon damage than other races, but lower resource pools and sustain. Altmer should have the highest Magicka pool and a small amount of sustain. Both should be similar DPS, with Dunmer slightly higher burst, and Altmer slightly higher sustained (at the cost of being glass cannon). Breton should have the best sustain, with good defense, and a Magicka pool right between the others. Something along the lines of:
- Dunmer 387 SD&WD, 1500 Mag&Stam, Fire Resist
- Altmer 258 SD, 2500 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery
- Breton 2000 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery, Spell Resist, 8% Cost Reduction (slightly increased value since the calculation is changing next patch)
- Orc (unchanged) 258 WD, 2000 Stamina, Speed, 1000 Max Health, Healing proc

ATreeGnome

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ATreeGnome wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Mostly agree, but there are cases where resistances can be directly considered as more health. The Dunmer Fire Resistance for example, allows them to build for about 5% less health than other races if they know that the primary source of damage is fire based (Yolnakriin and Assembly General are probably the two best examples). It’s certainly a niche passive though. The Breton Spell Resistance (for things like vMoL and vCR) or Nord Spell and Physical are much more broadly useful.

The Altmer off-resource sustain is simply garbage in PVE. They effectively only get 2 racial passives, which is why I ended up race changing my main Altmer after the rebalance. I’d actually much prefer to see Altmer receive a good 3rd passive than for Orc to be nerfed, even if it meant I’d need to race change back.

The fire resistance can be a pretty strong passive but it's not universal enough to reliably build around it like you can with an actual health bonus. I would like to see the Altmer resource return passive reworked as well but not in such a way to give them any more of an offensive advantage over Dunmer - I think they are really well balanced in that respect. Something like a shock equivalent of the Dunmer flame resistance passive would seem pretty fair, though perhaps not very interesting.

IMO Dunmer should have slightly more Spell and Weapon damage than other races, but lower resource pools and sustain. Altmer should have the highest Magicka pool and a small amount of sustain. Both should be similar DPS, with Dunmer slightly higher burst, and Altmer slightly higher sustained (at the cost of being glass cannon). Breton should have the best sustain, with good defense, and a Magicka pool right between the others. Something along the lines of:
- Dunmer 387 SD&WD, 1500 Mag&Stam, Fire Resist
- Altmer 258 SD, 2500 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery
- Breton 2000 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery, Spell Resist, 8% Cost Reduction (slightly increased value since the calculation is changing next patch)
- Orc 258 WD, 2000 Stamina, Speed, 1000 Max Health, Healing proc

That would make a lot of sense thematically, but it would require a full re-balance of all the other races too. I would be overjoyed just to see the current outliers brought more in line.

WrathOfInnos

ATreeGnome wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

ATreeGnome wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Mostly agree, but there are cases where resistances can be directly considered as more health. The Dunmer Fire Resistance for example, allows them to build for about 5% less health than other races if they know that the primary source of damage is fire based (Yolnakriin and Assembly General are probably the two best examples). It’s certainly a niche passive though. The Breton Spell Resistance (for things like vMoL and vCR) or Nord Spell and Physical are much more broadly useful.

The Altmer off-resource sustain is simply garbage in PVE. They effectively only get 2 racial passives, which is why I ended up race changing my main Altmer after the rebalance. I’d actually much prefer to see Altmer receive a good 3rd passive than for Orc to be nerfed, even if it meant I’d need to race change back.

The fire resistance can be a pretty strong passive but it's not universal enough to reliably build around it like you can with an actual health bonus. I would like to see the Altmer resource return passive reworked as well but not in such a way to give them any more of an offensive advantage over Dunmer - I think they are really well balanced in that respect. Something like a shock equivalent of the Dunmer flame resistance passive would seem pretty fair, though perhaps not very interesting.

IMO Dunmer should have slightly more Spell and Weapon damage than other races, but lower resource pools and sustain. Altmer should have the highest Magicka pool and a small amount of sustain. Both should be similar DPS, with Dunmer slightly higher burst, and Altmer slightly higher sustained (at the cost of being glass cannon). Breton should have the best sustain, with good defense, and a Magicka pool right between the others. Something along the lines of:
- Dunmer 387 SD&WD, 1500 Mag&Stam, Fire Resist
- Altmer 258 SD, 2500 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery
- Breton 2000 Mag, 100 Mag Recovery, Spell Resist, 8% Cost Reduction (slightly increased value since the calculation is changing next patch)
- Orc 258 WD, 2000 Stamina, Speed, 1000 Max Health, Healing proc

That would make a lot of sense thematically, but it would require a full re-balance of all the other races too. I would be overjoyed just to see the current outliers brought more in line.

True, I was suggesting a way to balance around the current power level of Orc (and the change to Breton would only be countering an indirect nerf), but by buffing Altmer and Dunmer, other underperforming races would also need to be brought up, like Khajiit, Argonian, Bosmer, and Redguard.

vesselwiththepestle

I play Bosmer Necro and I can't use blue food, I don't know how others do it, but I have to use dubious or Artaeum. I feel tricked, because I choose Bosmer to avoid using gold food and now it's Orc who can use cheap food .

It's similar with Khajiit, where it has been proven, that Orc's +258 weapon damage (and higher stamina bonus) results in higher crits than Khajiit's +10% crit damage. (In PVE)

Khajiit can at least sneak, Bosmer don't even have such an useful passive like Khajiit's stealth ability or Orc's run speed, I just checked again, but on Bosmer I am missing one whole racial passive for utility.

katorga

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

I play Bosmer Necro and I can't use blue food, I don't know how others do it, but I have to use dubious or Artaeum. I feel tricked, because I choose Bosmer to avoid using gold food and now it's Orc who can use cheap food .

It's similar with Khajiit, where it has been proven, that Orc's +258 weapon damage (and higher stamina bonus) results in higher crits than Khajiit's +10% crit damage. (In PVE)

Khajiit can at least sneak, Bosmer don't even have such an useful passive like Khajiit's stealth ability or Orc's run speed, I just checked again, but on Bosmer I am missing one whole racial passive for utility.

Orc, Dunmer, and High Elf are pretty much work with anything. 258 damage is the highest racial stat in the game. The other races you have to build around the passives to get real value out of them, although I think Nord and Breton are uniquely good.

Cathexis

Damage means nothing imo
Speed is also nerfed rn

At it's core it's just basically an imperial with a different style.
There's a lot to consider when you look at racials, like how complimentary they are, and how effective they are practically, not just sheer numbers.

Another problem is it's convenient to say "oh based on my play style, these X things are imbalanced." Well maybe, but maybe your play style is the problem.

John_Falstaff

Cathexis wrote: »

Damage means nothing imo
Speed is also nerfed rn

At it's core it's just basically an imperial with a different style.
There's a lot to consider when you look at racials, like how complimentary they are, and how effective they are practically, not just sheer numbers.

Another problem is it's convenient to say "oh based on my play style, these X things are imbalanced." Well maybe, but maybe your play style is the problem.

That's too many vague words. Damage is what most of ESO about, and with speed nerfed, racial speed bonus becomes all the more valuable.

No bonuses are more versatile than that of orc's. Health gives a way to use regen food and synergizes with the new money-grab class. Weapon damage is easy to translate into sustain when needed, and extra stamina is an indirect source of extra sustain too. Speed is useful both in PvP and PvE, more so on motion-heavy fights; wherever you sprint even for a second to change position, orc starts giving you an edge.

Even from PvP point of view, every playstyle is covered. Tank? Sure, here's your extra health, extra resources and damage that allows to swap one of offensive five-pieces for defensive one, orcs will feel the loss of 7th/Fury less than others. Brawler? Here's the weapon damage and health recovery. Ganker? Forget about khajiit, it was mentioned above that orc's higher base damage makes crits higher than 10% crit damage does, which is absurd as balancing goes - and speed bonus makes breaking the measure easier.

ATreeGnome

Cathexis wrote: »

Damage means nothing imo
Speed is also nerfed rn

At it's core it's just basically an imperial with a different style.
There's a lot to consider when you look at racials, like how complimentary they are, and how effective they are practically, not just sheer numbers.

Another problem is it's convenient to say "oh based on my play style, these X things are imbalanced." Well maybe, but maybe your play style is the problem.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "damage means nothing". It's one of the most important factors in combat in ESO, both in PvE and PvP. You can't clear a trial without damage and you can't beat other players without dealing damage to them in some fashion.

And how can you say that Orcs are basically the same as Imperials? Sure, they both offer max health and stamina, but their other passives are completely different. 258 weapon damage is not the same as 3% cost reduction and resource return. If that's the case, then Nords are basically the same too. Khajiit as well.

My whole point is how the Orc passives are complimentary AND overturned numberwise. If this were about sheer numbers then Dunmer and Khajiit would be the subject of my complaints, but their bonuses are not very complimentary, Orc's most definitely are.

As for my playstyle being the problem, that could well be. But if that is the case, the game needs to stop rewarding me for doing as much damage as I can as quickly as I can while avoiding death as best I can. As the game is now though, I can't see any situation where having the best damage bonuses and an extra 1000 more health than the race with the race with the 2nd best damage bonuses isn't an advantage.

Varaug_Gaming

remember how the initial proposition of their passives was balanced

then all the orc fan boys started crying and they increased the passives, twice

Rake

no

Strider__Roshin

The fact that Orc is the go-to race for stam is ridiculous. I also hate the fact that Nords have been left in the dust since this game's inception as a DPS race even though they're supposed to be one of the best warriors if not the best. Heck in this game Dunmers are stronger warriors than them. Ridiculous.

ccmedaddy

This. I miss the days when my orcs felt special UwU