I had to decide this once too for my second NB character (have a V16 Imperial NB and play as a magicka NB at moment, works pretty fine in spite of not having the racials for this).

As I play mostly PvE and around 90% of all damage that might hit you there as a healer or magicka DD is some sort of spell damage, I decided to choose Breton for the spell resistance. In addition this gives me the opportunity to play as a vampire too.

The elemental damage on the other side might slightly favor your normal fire staff attacks as a magicka NB DD if you do your weaving properly, otherwise you won't use any elemental damage attacks as a magicka NB. Your own class skills are everything you need as a magicka NB DD and they are all magic damage, which means Thaumaturge is your friend.

Flameheart wrote: »

I had to decide this once too for my second NB character (have a V16 Imperial NB and play as a magicka NB at moment, works pretty fine in spite of not having the racials for this).

As I play mostly PvE and around 90% of all damage that might hit you there as a healer or magicka DD is some sort of spell damage, I decided to choose Breton for the spell resistance. In addition this gives me the opportunity to play as a vampire too.

The elemental damage on the other side might slightly favor your normal fire staff attacks as a magicka NB DD if you do your weaving properly, otherwise you won't use any elemental damage attacks as a magicka NB. Your own class skills are everything you need as a magicka NB DD and they are all magic damage, which means Thaumaturge is your friend.

How does going Breton give the opportunity to go vamp? Spell resistance does not equal fire resistance... One is still better off going altmer for the increased magicka regen and increased stave fire damage assuming one is weaving correctly.

Breton vampire. You will get good magicka resistance with stealth passive

Aldmer for regen and good DPS.
Dunmer for resistance to fire and DPS based on fire, a must for vampire.

Brrrofski wrote: »

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

Flameheart wrote: »

I had to decide this once too for my second NB character (have a V16 Imperial NB and play as a magicka NB at moment, works pretty fine in spite of not having the racials for this).

As I play mostly PvE and around 90% of all damage that might hit you there as a healer or magicka DD is some sort of spell damage, I decided to choose Breton for the spell resistance. In addition this gives me the opportunity to play as a vampire too.

The elemental damage on the other side might slightly favor your normal fire staff attacks as a magicka NB DD if you do your weaving properly, otherwise you won't use any elemental damage attacks as a magicka NB. Your own class skills are everything you need as a magicka NB DD and they are all magic damage, which means Thaumaturge is your friend.

How does going Breton give the opportunity to go vamp? Spell resistance does not equal fire resistance... One is still better off going altmer for the increased magicka regen and increased stave fire damage assuming one is weaving correctly.

Fire is counted as a spell.

So spell resistance will help negate it.

As a source here: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/169231/elemental-resistance-vs-spell-resistance

So fire resistance is rated as usually better as normal spell resistance - especially if it is has the higher value - because it protects maybe (needs testing) from other fire damage sources as just spells/magic (in example: lava etc.), but nevertheless spell resistance is far from useless and helps a lot...and almost 4k spell resistance added by the Breton racial, I rate as "a lot" and not "mediocre".

At least for PvP my guess is that 100% of all fire damage there hitting you is magical (enemy player skills. NPC skills), maybe in CoA hardmode you should be eager to get Valkyn down before he destroys the third platform ;-)

In compare now the advantage of somewhat higher normal (fire) attacks due to weaving a (poison enchanted) flame staff for single target dps as a Nightblade while choosing Altmer as race...

People calculate the additional dps you do by weaving in a boss fight at around 2-3k dps. Let's say you do 3k dps. 4% (highest racial bonus) from 3k dps = 3000 / 100 x 4 = 120 dps increase

Let's asume the 3k dps is a value preV16 and with the now new and much more powerful weapons the value is higher. Let's say it's 5k dps -> 5000 / 100 x 4 = 200 dps increase

It's up to you to decide.

I admit that there might be differences for weaving dps because it really depends on the skill you combine the weaving with. As a NB you will mostly use Swallow Soul / Funnel Health as main attack skill and you will soon notice that it is pretty hard to weave with light attacks. The attacks you weave are more some sort of medium attack.

At the current state of racials and the magicka NB I would still take Breton over Altmer, but It's not "wrong" to choose Altmer too. It just depends on what exactly you wanne do with that char (PvE, PvP, pure magicka DD, healer, hybrid healer/dps, vampire...). I play my NB as a full healer or hybrid healer/DD and I like it to survive a one hit attack if I forgot to recast my light armor shield (or there was no time to do it). My V16 Breton Templar has 19k+ spellresistance (no nirnhorned gear, just a mix of 5 x Seducer, rest Torug + 1 Undaunted shoulder piece for more health, Willpower jewelry set, 5 light, 1 medium, 1 heavy).

To do list for a healer in right order:

-take care to survive
-heal group
-buff/debuff
-dps

honestly, i never have sustain issues on my magblade. siphoning strikes is amazing at keeping resources up. so personally the only difference i can see between high elf and breton on a magblade would be the extra elemental damage vs extra spell resist. so really i think high elf would be the better choice for more dps just for the simple fact that it would give extra damage on staff weaves. even if its only a little more dps , its still more than a breton would do.

timmayyyboy wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

jebuspowers wrote: »

Khajiit is supposed to be stealthyand I think it's natural crit bonus is only for weapon critical. I'm not completely sure but I don't think the crit bonus applies to spells, in which case a high elf or Breton would be better. Between those 2 I'm not sure. I would say Breton for the resistance.

agree
The main difference between Breton and High Elf is I think the choice between higher Spell Resistance or higher Elemental Damage.

If you are going to use Damage Shields for sustain, typical a Sorc, you have less need for Spell Resistance and then the higher Elemental Damage fits well to the abilities and the Destro of a Sorc.

A NB will typical not use Damage Shields for sustain and has enough class abilities for high Damage. So will do Damage with less Elemental abilities or not at all. So less or no benfit of Elemental Talent.


The difference between Mag Recovery or Mag Cost reduction, assuming you use LA, is almost a wash.
Whereby Cost Reduction is most of the time better if you have less Cost Reduction Jewelry and Magicka Recovery better if you use many Cost Reduction Jewelry .

EDIT added:
If you cast almost all the time, sustained DPS, Cost Reduction is ALWAYS better.
If your playstyle is kiting a lot or bursty in PVE Mag Recovery becomes better.
PVP depends on your playstyle, but Recovery seems often better.

This might be stupid so please dont bash it to hard lol, but does weaving attacks between skills with say a fire destro staff count towards the elemental talent?

Medium attack weaves with an inferno staff count as fire damage, as does shooting star, and elemental blockade if you have the maelstrom staff. They deal fire damage, therefore the fire damage boost from racials and elemental expert boost them.