The Imperial Race Debate

IronWooshu

[ I posted this in another thread for Orc Racials but I think Imperial needs a second pass on their passives, I would also like to hear opinions from other players on how they think Imperial stacks up ]

Imperial compared to the other races..

Healers: Breton High Elf and Argonian
Tanks: Nord and Argonian
Magicka DPS: High Elf, Dark Elf, Breton
Stamina DPS: Orc, Redguard, Dark Elf, Khajiit

Where would you slot an Imperial over any of those other races?

Stam PVP? Orc and Nord both have better racials

Imperial is just there. They're not horrible but they dont hold weight in anything. What could ZOS do to make them better? What would you like to see changed? or are you happy with where they are?

Insco851

Imperial works best as a pvp mag build. You disregard tri glyphs and go max mag. The regen is on par with argonian but not as bursty.

Abhaya

I only play imperial for the aesthetic. I would never choose them if I was trying to min/max. That being said, max stamina and max health are great and it allows me to run lava foot food for max stam and recovery if I put a tiny bit of my attributes into max health.

As a stam DD compare it to orcs though. We effectively get 4000 max stats while they get 3500 (correct me if I’m wrong on that) as well as their 258 weapon damage. 500 stamina converts to only ~48 weapon damage putting them at a big advantage for DPS. The sustain from red diamond is so negligable that I don’t even notice a difference in a PVP environment. It also gives zero recovery when you aren’t attacking and the returns are diminished unless you are hitting something every 4 seconds and every moment you are off on that 4 second cooldown you are losing sustain. I would recommend removing the health recovery (this does absolutely nothing and is halfed in PVP) and provide a flat bonus to mag and stam recovery. Maybe somewhere inbetween 258 and the 85 that Khajiit get.

Vermethys

I like Imperials the way they are, though I might be biased because I like the race from a lore and aesthetic point of view. My (PvP) StamDK and StamSorc are both Imperials and I like how I don't need much investment in health to reach about 29k in CP Cyro, and their sustain is good. Overall I think they make great, well-rounded brawlers.

In PvE I play them as a DK and Sorc tank respectively, and I feel they are excellent there too. The race is good the way it is imo, though I wouldn't mind seeing the Red Diamond passive buffed a tiny bit.

IronWooshu

Red Diamond 100% needs buffed I agree with this assessment from posters, I think the perk that needs it most is that one.

Drop the health and increase the stam and mag return or make it 5% reduction on everything. The health return is absolutely unnecessary.

grannas211

I guess they dont want to make them good in fear of the "P2W" crowd.

jypcy

I don’t think a buff is necessary. I do think there’s a little bit of room for them to be buffed without being overpowered. But I think it’s good if they’re not the best in any role because they’re a separate purchase race. Let us who want to play them do so and be good enough without forcing people to pay extra to be the best.

Cortimi

grannas211 wrote: »

I guess they dont want to make them good in fear of the "P2W" crowd.

With the buffs to Bash glyphs and Necroes existing, that ship has already sailed.

Hexvaldr

Tanks who find they are not utilizing Argonian potion passive very frequently may well benefit from the greater overall max stat potential of Imperials. So much depends on your class, food, build, group composition, and the specific content or encounter you're in.

MartiniDaniels

Imperial with lava foot-soup performs as dps on the same level as everybody else (not counting orc).

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458985/raid-buffed-dps-test-each-class-each-dd-race-pts-4-3-3/p1

Also it is great race for tanking, which is not weaker then Nords or Argonians in overall package.
For PVP Imperials have overall big load of passives, and I don't see how are they worse then any other race.

So race is very versatile now. Tbh, I don't know that ZOS could change, race seems completely ok and nerfing/buffing won't bring any good.

Nevasca

Red Diamond offers more sustain than Resourceful (argonian pot) alone, and you also got 3% cost reduction on their passives. Also it reduces cost from everything, block, roll dodge, ult, all spells... Their racials are very overlooked just because they don't have spell/weapon damage attached to it.

IronWooshu wrote: »

Where would you slot an Imperial over any of those other races?

Imo, for tanking in PvE: Imperial > Nord > Argonian = Khajiit. But who cares about racials for tanking in pve anyway lol.
Like the other guy said it also makes a good PvP magicka race, it works similar to argonian in terms of stam sustain but imo it is much better due to the cost reduction and max stamina. You could argue that High Elf also has really good stam sustain which is very true, but Imperial also works but in different ways. It works really well for MagDK who blocks a lot for example.

Imperial imo is a very flexible race which is what ZoS attempted to accomplish in the first place. It needs no buffs or nerfs.

EDIT: I also think it's a bit unfair to compare to Orc which everyone agrees it's clearly overperfoming (best dps + health? cmon...)

grannas211

Cortimi wrote: »

grannas211 wrote: »

I guess they dont want to make them good in fear of the "P2W" crowd.

With the buffs to Bash glyphs and Necroes existing, that ship has already sailed.

dont forget a new bash monster set incoming

IronWooshu

Curious to those that rate Imperial over Nord for tanking, how? Even PVP for that matter how? Nearly 4k in resists makes light and medium armor feel like heavy armor. That passive alone in PVP is anything greater than Imperial brings even with 1k more health and 500 more stamina.

With tanking the Nord ultimate gain is greater than anything Imperial brings and is the defacto number 1 race for end game tanking. Argonian sustain is a huge return which can be used to permablock whereas Imperial cant permablock since they need to keep direct damage every 5 seconds in order to even reach Argonian level of sustain.

Many flaws in Imperial tanking to take them over Nord or Argonian.

Magicka Imperial for PVP is interesting but red diamond needs better return and if that makes losing the health return on red diamond to increase stam and mag return, I am all for it.

jypcy

IronWooshu wrote: »

Curious to those that rate Imperial over Nord for tanking, how? Even PVP for that matter how? Nearly 4k in resists makes light and medium armor feel like heavy armor. That passive alone in PVP is anything greater than Imperial brings even with 1k more health and 500 more stamina.

With tanking the Nord ultimate gain is greater than anything Imperial brings and is the defacto number 1 race for end game tanking. Argonian sustain is a huge return which can be used to permablock whereas Imperial cant permablock since they need to keep direct damage every 5 seconds in order to even reach Argonian level of sustain.

Many flaws in Imperial tanking to take them over Nord or Argonian.

Magicka Imperial for PVP is interesting but red diamond needs better return and if that makes losing the health return on red diamond to increase stam and mag return, I am all for it.

Disclaimer that, despite the majority of my tanks being imperial, I don’t personally believe that they’re the best pve tank race, and again, am not in favor of them being the best tank race either. But just some thoughts based on experiences with different builds.

A: in the vast majority of endgame tanking, permablocking is unnecessary and wasteful. So while I grant that argonians can have an advantage over imperials in this regard, I think it’s more indicative of argonians perhaps being the best beginner tank race for those players who don’t know mechanics and want to permablock to be safe. Also, there are a number of other ways to regain stam while blocking including at least one from every class. Sure argonians have a great racial bonus to help with this, but other races can permablock well enough without it if that’s the strategy the player needs to use.

B: Nords have increased resistances and ulti gen but no sustain bonuses iirc. Thus, as a tank, they’re more likely to use a sustain monster set. For races with sustain bonuses that presumably don’t need such a monster set, let’s try out bloodspawn. It’s hard to say exactly what its worth is because its uptime can vary widely depending on the fight conditions. At a perfect, entirely theoretical 100% uptime, it’s far better to use bloodspawn + a sustain race than a Nord + a sustain set. With at least ~60% uptime, your average resistances surpass a nord’s. And with at least 20% uptime, your average ultigen also surpasses a nord’s. A Nord with enough sustain to not need a sustain set could also wear bloodspawn and get better ultigen and resists than either of the other races we’re discussing, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re surpassing the resist cap during procs and thus “wasting” set utility (*granted, it’s debatable how much utility the resists actually amount to for pve tanking given the low proc chance).

Xarc

IronWooshu wrote: »

Imperial compared to the other races..

Healers: Breton High Elf and Argonian
Tanks: Nord and Argonian
Magicka DPS: High Elf, Dark Elf, Breton
Stamina DPS: Orc, Redguard, Dark Elf, Khajiit

Where would you slot an Imperial over any of those other races?

In your heart

WildRaptorX

I love my imperial warden. I love the extra 2k health + 10% from minor toughness

No_Division

recent PTS changes ruins the cost reduction a little on imperial. They only buffed templar/seducer set/sorc to account for the change to all multiplicative, but left all other cost reduction in the dirt.

But this means those in heavy armor will see a 200-300 cost reduction with how multiplicative works lol (at least with my findings)

Onefrkncrzypope

jypcy wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Curious to those that rate Imperial over Nord for tanking, how? Even PVP for that matter how? Nearly 4k in resists makes light and medium armor feel like heavy armor. That passive alone in PVP is anything greater than Imperial brings even with 1k more health and 500 more stamina.

With tanking the Nord ultimate gain is greater than anything Imperial brings and is the defacto number 1 race for end game tanking. Argonian sustain is a huge return which can be used to permablock whereas Imperial cant permablock since they need to keep direct damage every 5 seconds in order to even reach Argonian level of sustain.

Many flaws in Imperial tanking to take them over Nord or Argonian.

Magicka Imperial for PVP is interesting but red diamond needs better return and if that makes losing the health return on red diamond to increase stam and mag return, I am all for it.

Disclaimer that, despite the majority of my tanks being imperial, I don’t personally believe that they’re the best pve tank race, and again, am not in favor of them being the best tank race either. But just some thoughts based on experiences with different builds.

A: in the vast majority of endgame tanking, permablocking is unnecessary and wasteful. So while I grant that argonians can have an advantage over imperials in this regard, I think it’s more indicative of argonians perhaps being the best beginner tank race for those players who don’t know mechanics and want to permablock to be safe. Also, there are a number of other ways to regain stam while blocking including at least one from every class. Sure argonians have a great racial bonus to help with this, but other races can permablock well enough without it if that’s the strategy the player needs to use.

B: Nords have increased resistances and ulti gen but no sustain bonuses iirc. Thus, as a tank, they’re more likely to use a sustain monster set. For races with sustain bonuses that presumably don’t need such a monster set, let’s try out bloodspawn. It’s hard to say exactly what its worth is because its uptime can vary widely depending on the fight conditions. At a perfect, entirely theoretical 100% uptime, it’s far better to use bloodspawn + a sustain race than a Nord + a sustain set. With at least ~60% uptime, your average resistances surpass a nord’s. And with at least 20% uptime, your average ultigen also surpasses a nord’s. A Nord with enough sustain to not need a sustain set could also wear bloodspawn and get better ultigen and resists than either of the other races we’re discussing, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re surpassing the resist cap during procs and thus “wasting” set utility (*granted, it’s debatable how much utility the resists actually amount to for pve tanking given the low proc chance).

This might hold true on other class tanks but bloodspawn nords on a DK is extremely noticable. I permablock keep up buffs and such and outsustain many argonians. Been a nord tank since the game dropped. Sustain is stupid easy on a DK though I would probably recommend other races on other classes. Argonians + infused pot glyph + nb tank looks super easy. Or imperial if heals are bad.

Nevasca

IronWooshu wrote: »

Curious to those that rate Imperial over Nord for tanking, how?

Strictly talking in PvE hard-content, which could go from some dungeons on HM(like scalecaller) to trials:

Nord resistances are wasted if you want to use Lord Warden, since you go over the cap. Usually, resistances don't matter that much after block too. If you're about to take a heavy attack that does 100,000 physcal damage, considering you have 23% mitigation from ironclad and 13% from hardy:

If you have 27000 resistances, without blocking: 39,667
If you have 27000 resistances, blocking: 19,833
If you have 31000 resistaces, without blocking: 35,620
If you have 3100 resistances, blocking: 17,810

If you're getting killed from 2k difference in damage as a tank, you probably screwed up to get to that point. It's better to have better resource management so you can always magicka for self healing and debuffs.

The ultimate generation from Nord can get wasted too, especially in trials. You want to coordinate your Warhorns to maintain maximum uptime on it, you rarely use it on cooldown. The extra ult gen is useful for dungeons/arenas, though.

Imperial can proc Red Diamond easily, you want to light attack to proc your front bar enchantment anyway, so you will naturally proc it. You will always be benefiting from the stat return, unlike Argonian, you will have more health than Nord and Argonian which allows you to have a bigger stam/mag pool.

All in all, really, it doesn't really matter all that much. Imperial is better in terms of min/maxing, but you could be any race and be fine for tanking. Woeler tanked every content in the game as a Khajiit when it didn't had any passives for health or mag regen. You could tank without any skillpoints spent on racials and you'd probably be fine, lol.

Luckylancer

Imperial resource gain is lower than argonians with %100 up time. Lizards gets bursty one too. Dont forgeg instant effects are better than over times even if number are equal.

4k stats are over hyped. All races get stats, diffrence for imperials is not huge.

Red diamond's hp gain is one big bad joke. It is not even a joke in pvp because it dont exist in pvp. Other 2 resses worth 266 total regen gor mag and stam with %100 up time. Half of ambrr plasm 5 pc.

%3 cost reduction is half of another 5pc set.

So red diamond worth a 5pc bonus, like every other 3rd racial. But these sets are not impactfull, not unique, not intresting. They are not that good too.

At conclusion, imperial race is worse with most optimal tri stat+purp/gold food than orc for pvp. Playing imperial is boring and generic.

My idea: red diamond wont affected by battle spirit, increase red D cd by 2 times and resors gain by 2 times. Put slight red glow with proc. Make %3s, %4(maybe).

Knowing when res D proc makes imperial more fullfilling. 5 sec cd will annoy people, too often.

LeHarrt91

I think Imperials best characteristic lies in their versatility, you can have one character and spec it differently when needed. Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

katorga

Nord resistances are wasted if you want to use Lord Warden, since you go over the cap.

Benefit being you are not tied to Lord Warden like the other tanks.

So red diamond worth a 5pc bonus, like every other 3rd racial.

Mapping race passives to set bonuses is fun, and Imperial is not top, but it is near the top. Each 1000 stat is 1 set bonus, 2310 resist is .8 (2310/2975 set bonus). Argonian 6% healing is 1.5 compared to the common 4% set bonus. Fifth piece bonuses count as 2, and so on. I'm not judging the relative value of the passives, just how many set bonuses they equal.

Set bonus lines per race:
WoodElf: 9.8 (arguable how to count speed/pen on dodge, to me it is 3, one 5th piece for speed half of a 5th piece for pen)
Orc: 9
Dunmer: 8.4
Imperial: 8
Reguard: 8
Nord: 7.5
Khajit: 7.4
High Elf: 7
Argonian: 6.3
Breton: 5.8

SilentFox22

Don't feel too bad...no special niche for Bosmer either. *Feelz yer pain*

Seraphayel

Keylun wrote: »

I love my imperial warden. I love the extra 2k health + 10% from minor toughness

Wanted to say exactly the same. I love my Imperial Warden.

Delparis

Imperial is cosmetic only
And a waste of money

Deathlord92

I wish we could pick or morph our racial passives as I love playing a Breton

msalvia

Imperials make good PvE tanks, maybe a little bit under Nords, but certainly better than Argonians. That's about their only use, IMO.

Basically it's a choice between chunkier stat pools and cost reduction (imperials) vs higher ult gen and higher resists (Nord). Nord probably edges out Imperial since ult gen is not something you can get elsewhere (unlike the other passives in question), but it's a small gap.

And Argonians are a distant 3rd since the racial changes. Basically all Argonians bring is the potion passive, which is not in the same league as the other tank races.

Spizzie

Imperials make very good PvP Stam DK's since the Wrathstone update. 2000 Stamina and 2000 Health are both ideal for PvP and Red Diamond has excellent synergy with Volatile/Hardened Armor. That 3% cost reduction counts towards everything (mag and stam abilities, ultimates, blocking, roll dodging) and with Volatile Armor up, you'll return direct damage towards anyone that attacks you. This means that whether you're attacking or getting attacked, you're getting full use out of the resource return.

Consider that if you're also in 5 piece heavy, you're gaining 540 Magicka and Stamina every 4 seconds from the constitution passive. Combine that with Red Diamond's 333 every 5 seconds, and you're gaining 201 Magicka and Stamina every second just from being in a fight, including while you're blocking. It also allows you to use Wings, Igneous Shield, and Fossilize more often.

On an Imperial Heavy Armor StamDK, you can comfortably run 1200 Stam recovery and feel like your resources are endless.

luen79rwb17_ESO

Sad but true. Imperials were fun the 1st year; game was balanced differently with soft caps in place. Now I hardly play my Imperial characters.

Xarc

I know lots of great imperial players in Cyrodiil.

Strike_Maximus

I love everything imperial so I'm a little biased but I think Imperials make good PVE tanks overall. Yes, imperials where kinda shafted in the most recent update to racials but I still think there is still plenty of logic to have them in the top area of tank race choice. Imperial's passives just scream tank. Many people forget that tanks are all about support and survivability not how much dps they can pull.
I'm not one for min-maxing I play what I would enjoy in a character, I encourage others to do the same.