You get more magicka stats with high elf but yes, dunmer have slighlty more dmg. Nothing is right or wrong, you can take whatever you feel like of those two without doing something wrong. I dont think the difference are that much.

I actually have one in my friendlist who have both races in vr16, let me ask him later;)

Wollust wrote: »

In PvP High Elf is as good as Dunmer because regen matters.
In PvE it's Dunmer. 3% more firedamage is worth more than 1% magicka.

Edit: Dunmer looks way better than High Elf. Important to mention.

May be 1% more magicka but that 9% recovery and still a 4% elemental dmg. Im really leaning towards high elf. If the focus on fire dmg that significantly more than just elemental? Or is the regen too good to pass up?

Nobody has taken into consideration being a vampire so far (even though 99% of people know all about this already but this is just for the 1% that might not know this)


The flame resistance you get from Dunmer is very helpful.
The 9% magicka recovery you get from Altmer can be made up for by slotting a vampire skill and gaining the 10% extra recovery.
However, of course that means Altmer can gain an extra 10% recovery but will be hit harder with flame and will have to maybe use enchantments to negate it.

I say dunmer and most people tend to as well.

a1x23 wrote: »

Wollust wrote: »

In PvP High Elf is as good as Dunmer because regen matters.
In PvE it's Dunmer. 3% more firedamage is worth more than 1% magicka.

Edit: Dunmer looks way better than High Elf. Important to mention.

May be 1% more magicka but that 9% recovery and still a 4% elemental dmg. Im really leaning towards high elf. If the focus on fire dmg that significantly more than just elemental? Or is the regen too good to pass up?

Well to be perfectly honest with you, the 3% fire damage difference is something you won't notice much except for high end PvE content where minmax is the norm.

If you want to minmax in PvE, you need to go Dunmer.
In PvP it really doesn't matter. Both are good. It's about your preference here. If you want a bit more sustain, go for High Elf. If you want slightly more damage, better looks and the flexibility to change to stamina (not as good as Redguard or Imperial, but still better than High Elf), go for Dunmer. I do remember the flame resist passive being extremely good back when we had soft caps, no idea if it is of much importance these days tbh. And if you don't go vamp, it shouldn't concern you much anyway.

Wollust wrote: »

a1x23 wrote: »

Wollust wrote: »

In PvP High Elf is as good as Dunmer because regen matters.
In PvE it's Dunmer. 3% more firedamage is worth more than 1% magicka.

Edit: Dunmer looks way better than High Elf. Important to mention.

May be 1% more magicka but that 9% recovery and still a 4% elemental dmg. Im really leaning towards high elf. If the focus on fire dmg that significantly more than just elemental? Or is the regen too good to pass up?

Well to be perfectly honest with you, the 3% fire damage difference is something you won't notice much except for high end PvE content where minmax is the norm.

If you want to minmax in PvE, you need to go Dunmer.
In PvP it really doesn't matter. Both are good. It's about your preference here. If you want a bit more sustain, go for High Elf. If you want slightly more damage, better looks and the flexibility to change to stamina (not as good as Redguard or Imperial, but still better than High Elf), go for Dunmer. I do remember the flame resist passive being extremely good back when we had soft caps, no idea if it is of much importance these days tbh. And if you don't go vamp, it shouldn't concern you much anyway.

Thanks for the input. Very helpful but makes my decision harder haha.

That 9% regen is nice but there are a ton of other factor to consider.

Fire is the most common form of damage in the game, thus your fire resistance as a Dunmer keeps you alive better than an Altmer. Staying alive is as much your responsibility as it is your healers so anything to help out in that sense is a plus.
6% more stamina is never a bad thing to have. More dodge rolls/break free/etc is never a bad thing to have, even as a magic build.
At end game content, any GOOD support build will run Elemental Drain so sustain is practically a non-issue at that point.
Killing things quicker = less need for sustain.

In short, go Dunmer.

Obviously a Dunmer. You can play whatever you like and still be awesome, but if you want to max, then take the Dunmer.

Dunmer, no contest. PvP absolutely, PvE by a good enough margin to make it no contest.

Reason 1: 9 percent magicka, 6 percent stam. 15 percent resources vs 10 percent Altmer, advantage Dunmer.

Reason 2: DK's earthen heart passives restore a percent of stamina based on your total stamina pool. For this benefit, clearly a Dunmer outshines an Altmer

Reason 3: DK's are the natural pseudo hybrid, by both class passives, and built in resource management. Going all-in to one stat actually severely hampers the DK. (prismatic enchants are literally made for this class, or they should have been, a DK without prismatics makes me cry inside) If youre going full-in altmer damage spammer, you might as well be an overload sorc, because DK simply does not support the ranged caster role well at all, you have to slot weapon abilities to even have range, whereas a sorc does not. As such, you either railroad into a role better fit by a sorc in the first place, or you find yourself in close combat needing more stamina to block or dodge, therefore Dunmer takes the point here as well.

Reason 4: Magicka Regen means almost nothing to a DK. Vampirism + Battle Roar = You will want to be in AoE range a lot, further reinforcing reason 3 damagewise, you already have an additional 10 percent magicka recovery offsetting the Altmer passive, and you have 2.4% (approximately) more fire resistance than a stock Altmer, without using a single enchant. You should never run out of resources, even spamming skills like mad while alternating high Ult Cost ults like Bats or Standard (bats preferred due to the lower cost but still returning the higher cost resources) with crafted magicka potions (tri, spelldamage or otherwise). In fact, a DK with just 1400 regen will actually (assuming they are cycling ult+pot properly) run out of magicka much much later than any other build with 3k regen (only magicka nightblades beat DKs in terms of resource management, via siphoning). Go test it yourself. Advantage Dunmer, as Altmer regen is meaningless/almost useless to a DK, and Dunmer get back more net resources from battle roar (see reason 3)

Reason 5: Fire damage. it has been mentioned that Altmer have increased elemental damage, and while that does synergize with destro and DK class abilities well, a dunmer flat out has 3 percent more to class and inferno staves over an Altmer. As long as youre using Ardent Flame or Inferno Staff, there is no reason to be anything but a dunmer.

Reason 6: DK's skills lines (especially draconic power) lend the class to be naturally more defensive out of the box than any other class. As a result, even a modicum more stamina added to the ability to block, mitigate, and avoid gives DK's the ability to negate far more damage than any other class can (besides maybe sorc shielding) independent of gearout. Therefore there is nothing but advantage to being Dunmer in this category over Altmer, even on a full Magicka spec, its just free defense/resource that can be used for a lot of things.

Out of six major reasons (none of them aesthetic, all of them rooted in mechanics) Dunmer wins on all six. Feel free to debate this, but both of my V16 Magicka DKs are Dunmer Vampires for a reason. I currently have them both specced as PvP SnB Destro firebats with draw essence tanking added in, but when swapped to LA DPS gear, they perform very very well with no other required changes.