Its time for a racial passive rework.

Rematin

First of all i wanna say that i do not want to see racials removed, i just think they should be reworked so players have more freedom to customise their characters and not feel bottlenecked by their race choice. Race should be MOSTLY cosmetic with small passive differences between races, just like in literally any other MMORPG. One thing i want to point out is that in my opinion dark elves are the best designed race in the entire game and every racial passive design should be something like they did with dark elves. Playing a dark elf gives u complete freedom to be any role you want without feeling like you are falling behind much for not playing a different race.

From lore perspective some of the passives kinda make no sense whatsoever, im not a big lore andy, i know some basics and ill give my suggestion on how racials should be done.

THIS IS PURELY FROM A HIGH END PVE POV I DO NOT PLAY PVP SO I CANNOT COMMENT ON THAT GAME MODE.

Dark Elves - Perfect race. Gives you complete freedom to do anything so i wouldnt change anything and when it comes to lore they are supposed to be both skilled spellcasters and martial warriors as far as i know?

High elves - why are they better stam DDs then races like Redguard, Nord, Wood Elf? Are they not supposed to be a spell casting race? According to previous ESO games they are and this is one of the design flaws from the developers. Now, i do think they should retain their "stam dd" bonus (weapon damage) purely for the fact that i think all racial choices should be aesthetics first, so its completely ok that they can be good stam dds and even better mag dds. With that being said, i think High elves are in a good spot and do not need any further adjustments.

Wood elves - They are supposed to be agilve and swift warriors of the wild yet they fall noticably behind in their role compared to other races, even a spellcasting race such as high elf is better for stam DD than wood elf, kinda sus. For that reason, i think wood elves passives should be similar to high elves passives but toss in extra 258 weapon AND spell damage and this race becomes super good for stam DDs and maybe cut their stamina regen in half and give them magicka regen for amount removed. This makes them a counterpart to high elves (high elf=2k mag 258 wep spell damage, wood elf= 2k stam 258 wep spell damage). With this change, they get freedom to not only be competitive stam dds but decent mag dds too if a player choses to for whatever reason.

Orcs - Pretty good racials overall, they have weapon and spell damage increase (258) which is the best stat in the game for DDs and i think healers benefit from it too? not too sure i never played a healer. They also have some tanking racials such as small heal for dealing damage and some extra health. quite balanced race wouldnt really change anything, if anyone has suggestion just say it.

Bretons- one of the best looking races in the game, first option to pick when you click "create character", someone new to ESO and elder scrolls universe will assume that they are basic humans only to find out that lore wise they are half elves and all their passives are focused on making them best healers in the game..... I would make their passive "gift of the magnus" give 1k stam and 1k mag (playing into that hybridisation mindset), "spell attunement" spell res can stay (2310) and so can mag recovery (130) but add stam recovery there too (130 too), "magicka mastery" cost reduction for magicka skills reduced by 7% can stay but add 258 wep and spell damage (or maybe 129 for better balance? they have good sustain so giving them a bit less wep and spell damage makes it fair to other races while keeping their DPS competitive?). With these changes they can do all roles efficiently. They are great healers due to magicka, spell damage and mag recovery/flat reduction bonuses, they are decent tanks due to getting stam bonus as well as stam recovery bonus while also benefiting from all magicka related bonuses and they can now be quite decent both stam and mag DDs.

Redguard- Considered worst race by the community and i can see why. They have 2k stamina bonus, which is quite good but other than that they have absoloutely nothing. Sustain in esos current state is not a problem whatsoever on DDs. So how do we fix them? Redguards are supposed to be BADASS warriors that came from another continent and know the ancient secrets of martial yokudan arts (or something along those lines? im not an expert), they are swift and agile and they their racials should reflect that while also giving them freedom to build any role they want without falling behind much. So i think that they should be a counterpart to Bretons (Stamina counterpart) just like i would like to see wood elf be stamina counterpart to high elves. "martial training" reduces the cost of your STAMINA abilities by 7% and increases your wep and spell damage by 129, reduces the effectiveness of snares applied to you by 15, "conditioning" stays the same (2k stam), "adrenaline rush" when you deal damage restore 1005 stamina OR magicka, depending on which is higher, occurs every 5 sec. There, redguards no longer underwhelming race.

Nords- Why did they design nords with purely tanking in mind? Lore wise nords are these viking warriors that raided Tamriel and claimed Skyrim as their homeland, defended against Akaviri invasions and whatnot. They also have SPELLCASTERS in their lore, THE CLEVERMAN. So VIKING BERSERKERS and SAGES/SHAMANS yet ALL of their passives focus on TANKING?? Why? So heres a fix: "Resist Frost" 2310 frost resistance, max health by 1000, max MAGICKA by 1000 (frost is related to magic usually, clevermen were spellcasters, so giving nords a bit of magicka wouldnt hurt by the cost of lowering their frost resistance a bit). "stalwart" max stamina increase by 1500 (the same) when you take or DEAL damage you gain X ultimate, this effect can occur every X seconds (i put X cuz i do not know what number value would make it balanced when you also generate ultimate as a DD consistently purely for doing damage). "rugged" Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 1300 AND gives you 129 weapon and spell damage (this will make nords decent damage dealers (both mag and stam) while also making them slightly worse tanks because right now they are THE BEST and top meta pick for ANY tank of ANY class, also reason i would not give them more than 129 wep and spell damage is because i feel like being able to generate ultimate faster than other DDs will make up for loss of weapon and spell damage (the usual being 258 for more aggresive races))

Khajit- Pretty balanced race, would just add extra 129 weapon and spell damage as i feel like the extra crit damage they get isnt that big of a deal and can be a dead stat in an optimised group. Other than that, they have everything to give players freedom to play any role.

Argonian- Worst damage dealers by far, really good healers and decent tanks due to sustain. So i guess the only thing to make them decent at damage dealing is to add 129 weapon and spell damage to their "life mender" passive. They already get both stamina and magicka bonuses and their sustain is quite ok in their racial passive tree so this would make them ok damage dealers too.

Imperials- decent race, good tanks, decent sustain due to cost reduction to everything so only thing would be to add some form of weapon and spell damage and also maybe make "imperial mettle" give 1500 stamina and magicka instead of just 2000 stamina as lore wise imperials are known to have battle mages within their ranks.

SO YES EVERY RACE GETS SOME FORM OF WEAPON AND SPELL DAMAGE TO MAKE THEM DECENT AT ANY ROLE

"BUT THIS REMOVES RACIAL IDENTITIY???" No it doesnt, they still get to keep their gimmicky passives such as nords leveling two handers faster or dark elves taking less damage from lava etc etc. As i stated earlier, i strongly believe race choice FOR ANY MMO should be aesthetics and lore first and "stats" second (FFXIV does this very well, so does WoW).

p.s. ZOS hire me plz

Drako_Ei

I would like to comment on the khajiit racial passives a little more.


The 12% critical damage they get is useless, since the only option for DPS is medium armor, which already almost puts you at the critical damage CAP.

Because there is a softcap on critical damage, on high end PVE content where the group have all sorts of buffs, the racial passive is absolutely wasted.

React

Drako_Ei wrote: »

I would like to comment on the khajiit racial passives a little more.


The 12% critical damage they get is useless, since the only option for DPS is medium armor, which already almost puts you at the critical damage CAP.

Because there is a softcap on critical damage, on high end PVE content where the group have all sorts of buffs, the racial passive is absolutely wasted.

However in PVP, they're one of the best races for multiple classes because of the value of this crit passive.

Rematin

Drako_Ei wrote: »

I would like to comment on the khajiit racial passives a little more.


The 12% critical damage they get is useless, since the only option for DPS is medium armor, which already almost puts you at the critical damage CAP.

Because there is a softcap on critical damage, on high end PVE content where the group have all sorts of buffs, the racial passive is absolutely wasted.

yes, i did mention that

Treeshka

In my opinion all races should have positive stats for Magicka and Stamina since hybridization happened. Players should not be penalized just because they want to invest Magicka stat with a Redguard or any other race that has only one offensive stat bonus.

For Khajiit i believe that critical damage and healing bonus should be reduced and additional critical chance should be added for that reduction, maybe three or four percent.
Years ago it was Weapon Critical Chance and they changed it to Critical Damage, and now it should go back because it is the only stat that you can get from a racial passive that has a hard cap.

necro_the_crafter

Im also for racial paccive customisation, i think it will be great to choose passives based on a character or role you wanna play.
Having passives split to damage\heal\tanking(not mag or stam spec - cuz hybridization), and allowing player to choose which one they want would be pretty sweet

Stx

It’s long overdue.

Racials shouldn’t boost your combat performance by much, if at all. 1-2% dps difference at most.

Currently in ESO, racial choice can account for between 3-8% dps boost depending on your build the the race you chose. 8% is the extreme, example being a magicka dps build comparing an altmer to a bosmer. An altmer compared to a Breton would be less extreme, closer to 3% difference.

These numbers are based on research done by parsers from last year.

Racials should literally be flavor, defensive, utility, mobility, and a small stat bonus. You should never feel like you need to reroll a race just to play optimally. This isn’t a table top RPG in the 80’s.

Guild wars 2 racials don’t matter at all. They are flavorful but don’t impact combat 99% of the time.

World of Warcraft racials are 1% differences.

Even if the developers are intent on keeping racials powerful, one or two races shouldn’t be the best at everything. There needs to be better stat balancing and an overhaul.

Rematin

Stx wrote: »

It’s long overdue.

Racials shouldn’t boost your combat performance by much, if at all. 1-2% dps difference at most.

Currently in ESO, racial choice can account for between 3-8% dps boost depending on your build the the race you chose. 8% is the extreme, example being a magicka dps build comparing an altmer to a bosmer. An altmer compared to a Breton would be less extreme, closer to 3% difference.

These numbers are based on research done by parsers from last year.

Racials should literally be flavor, defensive, utility, mobility, and a small stat bonus. You should never feel like you need to reroll a race just to play optimally. This isn’t a table top RPG in the 80’s.

Guild wars 2 racials don’t matter at all. They are flavorful but don’t impact combat 99% of the time.

World of Warcraft racials are 1% differences.

Even if the developers are intent on keeping racials powerful, one or two races shouldn’t be the best at everything. There needs to be better stat balancing and an overhaul.

very well said! this game does so many things right but racials are not one of them and im honestly surprised that there was no update to them at the hybridisation patch. Zos said that 2023 is going to be a big year for ESO so big COPIUM that they finally listen to community when it comes to racial changes. My biggest concern is the dark side of ZOS, the money they earn from having unbalanced racials because it forces people to buy the tokens and it is especially a new player trap and for that reason we might never see a rework for the racials.

xylena_lazarow

Someone once suggested decoupling stats from character models, e.g. you can choose them like Mundus Stones, touch the stone to gain "Blessing of the Nords" and now you have Nord stat passives on your Redguard. To me this is the way, you'd be able to RP or minmax however you want, and the races would retain their flavor.