I want to open a separate discussion about Imperials and hopefully catch a developer's eye. ZOS is making some very interesting changes to racial passives this patch, and I know Wrobel stated on ESO Live that they thought Imperial passives are strong overall. The passives are indeed decently strong, but I feel that ZOS is missing an important opportunity to give the race a truly complete identity and niche. Here is a piece of feedback I left in the official thread:
Because Imperials are locked behind a paywall, there should be a very clear and desirable benefit for choosing them over other races. That benefit should NOT be a raw power advantage over other races, as many players would perceive this as “pay-to-win.” I believe the Imperial benefit should be that they are synergistic with the greatest variety of character builds and perform competitively in the greatest variety of situations. Additionally, they should be among the most conducive to switching your character between magicka and stamina specializations.
The +12% max health is nice, but not overly strong - this passive is not as good as it was at launch when the health to mag/stam attribute ratio was much higher than it is now. Ergo when the ratio was changed, both the max health passive AND Red Diamond (which scales with max health) were both unintentionally nerfed significantly. The +10% max stamina passive is also nice, but not unique or more powerful than what is offered in other racial toolsets. Both of these passives are reasonably balanced.
Red Diamond is the piece that desperately needs reworking to provide the Imperial edge/niche. It is incredibly weak and unreliable, even on a fast-attacking skill like Biting Jabs. This passive should be beefed up to achieve the goals I quoted above, providing a clear reason to pay a little extra to be able to play as an Imperial and afford players great build flexibility. Consider first that a diamond has four points, and ESO combat uses four resource pools. Also consider that Imperials in prior TES games have usually had an element of luck baked into their racial benefits. In keeping with this theme, here is my idea:
Red Diamond
When taking damage, you have an X% chance to restore Y% of max health over Z seconds.
Critical strikes with weapon attacks have an X% chance to restore Y% of max stamina over Z seconds.
Spells causing damage or healing over time have an X% chance to restore Y% of max magicka over Z seconds.
Each time you gain ultimate, you have an X% chance to gain 1 additional ultimate.
[ZOS would determine the appropriate numbers for the above variables.]
These restorative mechanics offer sustain that is subject to RNG in the spirit of the current Red Diamond. The procs are strong but
situational and overall just slightly weaker than a direct boost to recovery stats that many other races enjoy. They do not stack or directly interact with your character's recovery stats and are not prone to runaway multiplicative boost. The Z second duration is also important because it prevents rapid fire procs - if additional procs occur during the Z seconds, the duration is simply refreshed. These restorative passives scale nicely with and synergize with the player's build and are very adaptive and useful to a huge number of builds.
As I stated, I think it's appropriate to give Red Diamond four mini resource bonuses, as a diamond has four points. The numbers that I feel would be about right for the above variables are 10% chance, 6% of health/stam/mag, and over 4 seconds.
Thanks for reading!
@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel @ZOS_KNowak @ZOS_JessicaFolsom
Edited by Solariken on July 12, 2016 4:42AM