Race & Hybridization - The Losers?

Klingenlied

I guess, especially with people min-maxing and maybe thinking over a lot of options right now, we might talk race in ESO once again?

In my opinion, nothing really has changed though, only that the outliers are, more then ever, shoehorned into specific roles / specs while others just have become more general useful. The "usefulness" however should not relate to max parses only but general performance in a diverse set of roles for players that do not yet want to move beyond veteran dungeon content.

Lets start with the "worst" one first - unsurprisingly, stamina focused.

Wood Elves
Though I deem them rather interesting and absolutely a worthy pick in PvP, outside of it, they don't really have a place. Without any "real" benefit that is playstyle agnostic, their passives tell us to play them as stamina damage dealers. Penetration can be useful for magica as well - though magica easily caps it - but well, we'll be nice and consider this a 2% damage bonus. Besides from it? Well, we got 2k stamina, movement speed, very nice stamina recovery - that's it.
Now you could say: lets play them for lore reasons! Oh no, forget it. The stealthy race ain't stealthy.
So my verdict here is: Wood Elves are not close to the best even in their intended roles. For a lot of roles they are the worst possible pick (tank, mag dps, heal) and there isn't anything to make up for it.

Redguard
Generally speaking: Good for stamina builds, suprisingly good tanks, but they do not really excel at anything aside from stamina builds and even here, we have superior options. The benefit of cheaper weapon skills is niche, nice and interesting. But sustaining was never as easy as today, thus having a whole race build around (stamina-)sustain seems like a waste.


Argonians
Well, pretty much one issue only: Why only a healing bonus? Overall the race would lend itself great to a variety of playstyles. But a healing only bonus really, really hurts them - especially with their overall bonuses being mediocre only.

...

And I kinda want to stop here, because we are almost arriving at a trend: 258 extra spell- and weaponpower is desirable for everyone. So is dual resource or dual resource regeneration. If we look at tanks, sustain that is not bound to normal recovery (because it stops when blocking) also is way more useful then other methods. More Life? Also desireable, being tankier is nice for everyone.


So in all honesty, what I would love to suggest would be a flatout buff to all racial passives. Why now? Well, everyone was nerved with U35 and would like to see some buffs - buffing all races should make all players a little bit happier. And with hybridization in mind, I think every race should be able to perform relatively well in at least two roles when it comes to PvE. Something like Wood Elves that are mediocre even in their one and only intended role is bad design.

Holycannoli

I would say a good start would be to replace each race's XP bonus to a weapon skill with something useful.

Ragnarok0130

I’d like to eliminate racial passives entirely so we can play the race we want without being penalized. Replacing it with a system like Oblivion’s choosing which sign you are born under would be a better move and still allow fir you to plan your build.

ToRelax

Maybe we'll see some extra adjustments once spell and weapon damage are made into the same stat.

A flat buff for everyone wouldn't be a great idea, though. Doesn't actually change the balance between these passives, will lead to nerfs in other areas later, and messes with something most people can't or won't easily change about their characters for no good reason.

Elendir2am

I was amused, when somebody did penetration calculator for PvE builds, but omit bosmer passive as possible source. This calculators have all possible and impossible influences, but nobody expect bosmer in trial group. :'(

Klingenlied

ToRelax wrote: »

Maybe we'll see some extra adjustments once spell and weapon damage are made into the same stat.

A flat buff for everyone wouldn't be a great idea, though. Doesn't actually change the balance between these passives, will lead to nerfs in other areas later, and messes with something most people can't or won't easily change about their characters for no good reason.

Well I see where you are coming from. Other suggestions like removing racial bonuses entirely could possibly even work better. The main point here however was to point out that we have severely underperforming races with a gap that has even widened to maybe bring it to the attention of the devs.

I mean there is a lot wrong with the game right now. Race might just be a small part and I should not even care, I don't have any Wood Elf character and do enjoy my Breton the most. But if you just stopped looking at the greater picture of comparing characters as a whole and directly compare racial passives, the differences in usefulness are just staggering.

BlueRaven

Wood Elves really came out with the short straw when it came to their passives.

They seemed to be designed solely with PvP in mind, and even then they are not the "go to" race for PvP.

Their lore calls for them to be stealthy. - They are not stealthy.

They should be great at bows, are they even in the top five races for bows?

It's just so disappointing, like they came up with the passives that day. Like someone doing their homework at the very last minute.

Wood Elves are my favorite race (lore wise) but in ESO they just seem to be a race Zos can't be bothered with.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

I’d like to eliminate racial passives entirely so we can play the race we want without being penalized. Replacing it with a system like Oblivion’s choosing which sign you are born under would be a better move and still allow fir you to plan your build.

Oblivion had racials. The star signs was an additional thing.

LalMirchi

A spelling point that sometimes strikes me:

Loosers, people who wear loose clothes.

Losers, the perennial unfortunates who never gain anything else but pain and loss.

Stncold

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

I’d like to eliminate racial passives entirely so we can play the race we want without being penalized. Replacing it with a system like Oblivion’s choosing which sign you are born under would be a better move and still allow fir you to plan your build.

Oblivion still had racial bonuses and resists though.
Anyway, wood elves and redguards 100% need complete reworks. Argonians just need some tweaks.

Klingenlied

LalMirchi wrote: »

A spelling point that sometimes strikes me:

Loosers, people who wear loose clothes.

Losers, the perennial unfortunates who never gain anything else but pain and loss.

Now, may I ask if you have anything constructive to say on the matter at hand - and it does seem you understood what I was referring to? Or was this but an arrogant snark?

Just keep in mind: there is a lot of non-native speakers here. People that learned a language and it's rules ages ago, typing as they listen to words in their mind, applying general rules and rarely realizing exceptions to those.

Hapexamendios

The players

Redguards_Revenge

Redguard is all "looks good on paper" most of their racial passives are worthless or another does it better. It's the reason for my name. They thought those playing redguard were fools and couldn't call their BS. I'll edit with the reasons.

Iron_Warrior

I think redguard was decent before hybridization since you needed to line up your bars with stam abilities on a stam dd and redguard's sustain was usefull but with hybridization eveyone got a sustain boost, so they got even worse. Right now they are only good for tanking and even there, they are behind nords and imperials.

at this point they either need to throw racial passives out the window or do a complete overhaul.
When dunmer is BiS for all kinds of dds, when an orc makes a better mage compared to a breton, when masters of the sword are one of the worst dd races, you know you've messed up really really badly

Ragnarok0130

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

I’d like to eliminate racial passives entirely so we can play the race we want without being penalized. Replacing it with a system like Oblivion’s choosing which sign you are born under would be a better move and still allow fir you to plan your build.

Oblivion had racials. The star signs was an additional thing.

Well crap, looks like I need to replay Oblivion since I'm losing knowledge! Thanks for the excuse ;-)

Auldwulfe

I was pointing this out in other threads ... right now, the 3 top races are Orc, High Elf, and Dunmer ..... pretty much.
The others can have a niche, and I am partial to Imperials.....

And yes, orcs do, now, make better sorcerers than Bretons.....

There is very little incentive to play outside of those races ....

I, too, would support a complete overhaul of the races to re-establish their roles and niche.

Auldwulfe

Mik195

Outside PVP, wood elves only get 2 racial passives which seems a bit unfair. Not sure if other races have passives that aren't somewhat useful in both PVP and PVE. That should be a minimum expectation.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

I’d like to eliminate racial passives entirely so we can play the race we want without being penalized. Replacing it with a system like Oblivion’s choosing which sign you are born under would be a better move and still allow fir you to plan your build.

Oblivion had racials. The star signs was an additional thing.

Well crap, looks like I need to replay Oblivion since I'm losing knowledge! Thanks for the excuse ;-)

Get right to it, criminal scum! It's the internet law. 👍

Dawnblade

Racials should not convey any combat benefit. Players should be able to pick whatever race they wish and not feel like it was the 'wrong' choice later as the bonus does nothing for their class, resource, build or content type.

Doubly so when developers just decide to change everything on a whim, making an optimal choice suboptimal.

zaria

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I think redguard was decent before hybridization since you needed to line up your bars with stam abilities on a stam dd and redguard's sustain was usefull but with hybridization eveyone got a sustain boost, so they got even worse. Right now they are only good for tanking and even there, they are behind nords and imperials.

at this point they either need to throw racial passives out the window or do a complete overhaul.
When dunmer is BiS for all kinds of dds, when an orc makes a better mage compared to a breton, when masters of the sword are one of the worst dd races, you know you've messed up really really badly

I say Khajiit also get an short hand, it was decent at the start, they they started chipping away ways to raise crit chance.

Klingenlied

zaria wrote: »

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I think redguard was decent before hybridization since you needed to line up your bars with stam abilities on a stam dd and redguard's sustain was usefull but with hybridization eveyone got a sustain boost, so they got even worse. Right now they are only good for tanking and even there, they are behind nords and imperials.

at this point they either need to throw racial passives out the window or do a complete overhaul.
When dunmer is BiS for all kinds of dds, when an orc makes a better mage compared to a breton, when masters of the sword are one of the worst dd races, you know you've messed up really really badly

I say Khajiit also get an short hand, it was decent at the start, they they started chipping away ways to raise crit chance.

I think Khajit is different. General, hybridization did not do anything to them. It was crit cap nerf. Crit chance nerf. More emphasize on proc sets (so lose out on even more crit). So while I agree they have lost their appeal especially for well organized raiding, they perform nicely in up to 4man content and still have a very special place in PvP for especially hard hitting burst builds. So while I absolutely see what you are talking about, the difference in performance in a diverse set of roles when we do the extreme comparison of wood elf vs khajit is baffling. Khajit does win everywhere by a significant margin - Mag DPS, Stam DPS, Heal & Tank.

Katheriah

Y'all seem to forget Bosmer can have antlers.

shinry

Khajiit is my favorite race. Parsing on it for a realistic gauge or in an organized raid feels awful though since they practically have no third racial passive and lose out hard on damage as a result. I can no longer get good parse numbers on the dummy with those changes compared to (the overwhelming numbers of) my Dunmer peers. Khajiit still feels good to play solo or in a dungeon environment because you can reach higher crit damage even if it is just as good as the extra weapon damage another class could have. I will say having tri stat max and recovery has felt good from a hybridization standpoint though.