Getting the Most from High Sustain Races

Fennwitty

What mechanics let high-sustain races capitalize on their strengths?

As of now (Update 27), race bonuses give some races +damage, +attributes, +regen in a variety of ways. I'm not concerned about "let's rebalance this or that race." Changes happen anyway.

I'm interested from a mechanics "min-max" perspective: Given one character with high sustain vs. one without, what specific areas are opened up?

Specifically what can/should these characters do differently than races with worse sustain?

Clearly high resource characters ...

• Can cast abilities more frequently
• Don't 'have to' get resources from potions, food and specific gear
• Don't 'have to' utilize specific class abilities, synergies, etc.

It follows they're free to use higher-costing abilities: Which expensive abilities are most interesting?

It also follows they don't need as much restore from potions. What makes a good extra effect if you no longer need one +resource on a tri-potion?

How do you make the most of high-sustain today?

fred4

It's much simpler than that. Unless you run a heavy-attack build, every build needs some sustain above base, be it from your mundus (Atronach / Serpent), the food / drink that you run or the sustain set that you run. In addition people tailor their sustain with jewelry glyphs. If you're on a high-sustain race, you'll basically swap out a jewelry sustain enchant for weapon or spell damage, you'll swap mundus or you might wear two damage sets instead of a damage set and a sustain set. You end up more or less in the same place as on another race, because in my experience you tailor sustain to your playstyle regardless of race.

I PvP and do dungeons with mostly random groups. In those scenarios you bring your own sustain and healing. I can't speak for how it is in trials, e.g. as to whether people live purely on synergies. A PvP example of using a sustain race, Breton, is cloak uptime as a nightblade, because game engine mechanics conspire to make magicka cost reduction particularly effective for that.

zvavi

PvE or PvP

VoidCommander

Even if you are a damage based race, you should always max out your offensive based enchants/armor sets/ mundus stones. If you put a recovery enchant on your jewelry you are just nerfing yourself needlessly.