Picking a Race

crscams · March 2014

I have already chosen the Aldmeri Dominion. I wanted to be a dragon knight, what race should I be. (I can be any race)

Inversus · March 2014

What role do you want to fulfill?
Dunmer is good for the extra fire damage which you use a lot as a DPS DK.

If you're using weapon abilities you might instead use something like khajiit.

crscams · March 2014

@inversus i wanted to be a tank.

Inversus · March 2014

Ah, okay. Well you have a variety of choices really.

One one hand you can choose something like Orc/Nord/Khajiit- increased health regen in combat.
Or you could choose a race with magicka enhancements, as a lot of your tankish healing and defensive spells are going to be magicka focused, from draconic power.

If I were you I'd have a look at the Orc/Nord/Khajiit racials. You may also want to look at imperial who has a self healing passive, if you have the imperial edition.
See the passives and things here: http://esohead.com/

Hawke · March 2014

Races dont really matter. You should narrow the choices by the following:

Want to be human.
Want pointy ears.
You are a furry
Other.

It's mostly about appearances as far as the racials are concerned.

METALPUNKS · March 2014

Be whatever looks cool to you. If you really care about your charcter being super efficient in what they do then maybe chek out racial bonuses.

Sethro_27 · January 2016

Racial bonus really does matter. #Racialpassivelies

Heroborg · January 2016

Choose how you want to look i did khajiit and im a dps DK

Van_0S · January 2016

crscams wrote: »

I have already chosen the Aldmeri Dominion. I wanted to be a dragon knight, what race should I be. (I can be any race)

Argonian race is the best race for DK and also as a Sorc.

SnuggleMePlease · January 2016

Starting the new #RacialPassivesMatter movement.

Joking aside, there are plenty of different ways to go about using racial passives to enhance your chosen playstyle. For tanks, there are many options. Nords, have really good tank stats, but tend to not have many offensive capabilities, so they eventually become nothing but walking meat shields, only effective with a backline of DPS.

Orcs are also a very good bet as they have lots of tanky racial passives, but also more offensive options than Nords.

If you want to focus on the magicka aspect of it, I don't think Altmer would be a bad choice as you get buffs to max magicka and magicka regen there.

Also, the most obvious choice if you have the extra cash is Imperial. They get buffs to max HP as well as a 10% chance to heal themselves with each weapon strike. That means they can go pretty zerg as tanky characters.

Whatever you choose, just remember to play something that you will enjoy playing, regardless of how statistically effective it is. For some, I understand that being effective is what makes it enjoyable.

Cheers,
Snuggle

Danikat · January 2016

Bear in mind that racial passives do get changed periodically and at present there is no way to change your race.

So if that's what you're interested in (rather than appearance or lore) you might be better off picking a race based on the general theme of the passives, rather than anything specific. E.g. khajiit are sneak/stamina themed, nord are health/cold resistance themed etc.

Otherwise a month or 6 months or however long down the line you'll be one of the people logging in after a patch to rant about how your entire character is ruined and you have to start over because they've changed the passives that your entire build was relying on.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2016

Hawke wrote: »

Races dont really matter. You should narrow the choices by the following:

Want to be human.
Want pointy ears.
You are a furry
Other.

It's mostly about appearances as far as the racials are concerned.

Respectfully, this statement is simply untrue. Racial passives matter. I will concede that they might matter a little less for a tank than a DPS, but they absolutely matter. I will also say that picking a race for looks is a perfectly reasonable choice as some people don't care about min/maxing. But since your asking, I am guessing you care a little bit.

As a general rule, I would go for racial passives that boost your resources. Dunmer and Imperial would both be excellent for tanking on a DK. Dunmer DK has been the PVE sustained single target DPS Meta for a long time. The gap has closed recently, but I think they are still on top for long fights. If you have any inclination of ever going DPS on this toon, pick Dunmer. You get boosts to both magic and stam so its a win win. I would generally take Dunmer over Altmer. They get a bigger buff to fire damage and some extra stamina. All tanks need stam, and the only elemental damage you will be doing is fire on a DK. Imperial is another solid choice if you want to go for a stam tank, although, my favorite tanks to play with are magic DKs. Chains baby!!!

Brrrofski · January 2016

Orc, redguard or imperial are probably the best choices IMO. My Dk tank is an orc.

SnuggleMePlease · January 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Hawke wrote: »

Races dont really matter. You should narrow the choices by the following:

Want to be human.
Want pointy ears.
You are a furry
Other.

It's mostly about appearances as far as the racials are concerned.

Respectfully, this statement is simply untrue. Racial passives matter. I will concede that they might matter a little less for a tank than a DPS, but they absolutely matter. I will also say that picking a race for looks is a perfectly reasonable choice as some people don't care about min/maxing. But since your asking, I am guessing you care a little bit.

As a general rule, I would go for racial passives that boost your resources. Dunmer and Imperial would both be excellent for tanking on a DK. Dunmer DK has been the PVE sustained single target DPS Meta for a long time. The gap has closed recently, but I think they are still on top for long fights. If you have any inclination of ever going DPS on this toon, pick Dunmer. You get boosts to both magic and stam so its a win win. I would generally take Dunmer over Altmer. They get a bigger buff to fire damage and some extra stamina. All tanks need stam, and the only elemental damage you will be doing is fire on a DK. Imperial is another solid choice if you want to go for a stam tank, although, my favorite tanks to play with are magic DKs. Chains baby!!!

To add to what has been written here, Dragon Knight Vampire Dunmer is an extremely effective. You can contract vampirism to give the build even more DPS as well as mitigate some of the cons of being a vampire. I'll leave a guide here that talks about it more extensively.

https://youtu.be/gksBFC18uSI

Cheers,
Snuggle