No way would I change either. Perfect races for both classes

zeus1gdsm wrote: »

I'm thinking of changing my races on 2 characters.

I have a imperial templar which was initially tank and now a healer... I'm lacking in spell damage and in overall magical only 30k buffed. I'm thinking of changing it.. Is Breton still the best for min maxing healing? I was looking at argonian as well but I alrdy have an argonian warden I'm spec ing for healer.

I also have a dunmer dragon Knight. Initially going for dps I now run it as a tank... Should I change him to nording or orc? I prefer orc aesthetically. I'm only really lacking I. Magic for obsidian shield spam. But I haven't reglyphed for it either.. Sitting at 45k health right now.

Both these I'm looking to change in preference of a min maxing stand point.

I think first you need to explain what your Imperial Templar level is... because 30K buffed is incredibly low even for an Imperial. You should be using BLUE Health/Magicka food, and most gear adds some Max Magicka increase as well. You should also be running Inner Magelight from the Mages Guild skill tree which buffs Max Magicka by 8% (IM at level IV with two points in passive) and Spell Critical.

60 magic and 4 health

Full spc. All gear is purple.. Health glyph on chest and necklace.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Nord is a garbage race for tanking. Essentially, their damage reduction passive gets buried in the mitigation formula and doesn't amount to much of anything.

Actually, it works out to being an effective 6.38% increase to your Max Health, Healing Received, Damage Shield Strength, and Health recovery. This is true regardless of whatever other sources of mitigation your character has. I break down the math involved here if you are interested: Multiplicative Damage Reduction, Diminishing Returns, Effective Hitpoints, and Why The Rugged Passive Is A Lot Better Than People Give It Credit For

Factored in with their other passives Nords effectively get:

• 15.95% increased Max Health
• 27.65% increased Health Recovery
• 6.38% Increased Healing Received
• 6.38% increased Damage Shield Strength
• 6% increased Max Stamina
• 2079 extra Cold Resist

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Things do not scale off of "Effective Health".

That's not really correct though. Literally anything in the game that grants you a bonus to your raw Max health, applies a healing effect or damage shield to yourself, or boosts your health recovery becomes 6.38% more effective with the Rugged passive. That's a lot of different abilities, passives, and item set bonuses, more than I care to try and list because it would take me all day and I would probably still miss stuff.

There are only a few abilities, which scale directly off of your raw Max health, that don't fully benefit from the rugged passive, and only one that I know of which receives zero benefit. They are:

Blazing Shield: Receives partial benefit. The shield you receive is 6.38% stronger, but the damage dealt by this ability does not benefit from that passive.

Obsidian Shield + morphs: Receives partial benefit. Your own shield is 6.38% more effective, but not the one given to your allies.

Polar Wind: Receives partial benefit. The self heal is 6.38% more effective, but not the heal given to your ally.

Gripping Shards: This is the only ability that I know of (that scales off of max health) that receives no benefit from Rugged. This is because it's only functions are to deal damage (which is already negligible) and CC.


To put this into perspective let's compare how these abilities perform compared to the other two popular tank races, Imperials and Argonians (assuming an otherwise identical stat/gear/CP distribution):

Blazing Shield:

Imperials Max Health bonus increases the effectiveness of their shield and the damage done by 12%
Nords Max Health Bonus and Rugged passive increases the effectiveness of their shield by 15.95% and the damage done by 9%
Argonians Max Health bonus increases the effectiveness of their shield and the damage done by 9%

So for this ability, Nords get the strongest shield, Imperials deal the most damage, and Argonians receive no benefit over the other two races

Obsidian Shield + Morphs

Imperials Max Health bonus increases the effectiveness of their shield and their allies shields by 12%
Nords Max Health Bonus and Rugged passive increases the effectiveness of their shield by 15.95% and their allies shields by 9%
Argonians Max Health bonus increases the effectiveness of their shield and their allies shields by 9%

So for this ability, Nords get the strongest self shield, Imperials give out the strongest AoE shield, and Argonians receive no benefit over the other two races

Polar Wind

Imperials Max Health bonus increases the effectiveness of the self heal and the ally heal by 12%
Nords Max Health Bonus and Rugged passive increases the effectiveness of the self heal by 15.95% and the ally heal by 9%
Argonians Max Health bonus and Healing Done/received bonus increases the effectiveness of the self heal by 20.17% and the ally heal by 14.45%.

So for this ability Argonians are the best in all aspects, Nords get the second strongest self heal, and Imperials give out the second strongest ally heal.

Gripping Shards

Imperials Max Health bonus increases the damage dealt by this ability by 12%.
Nords and Argonians Max Health Bonus increases the damage dealt by this ability by 9%

So for this ability Imperials receive the most benefit and Nords and Argonians are tied.

For everything else in the game here is how they stack up:

For anything that increases Max Health, the effectiveness will be increased by 15.95% for Nords, 12% for Imperials, and 9% for Argonians

Max Health
1st place: Nords
2nd place: Imperials
3rd place: Argonians

For anything that causes a self heal, the effectiveness will be increased by 6.38% for Nords (15.95% if it scales off of max health), 0% for Imperials (12% if it scales off of max health), and 10.25% for Argonians (20.17% if it scales off of max health)

Self Heals
1st Place: Argonians
2nd Place: Nords
3rd Place: Imperials

For any healing received from outside sources, the effectiveness will be increased by 6.38% for Nords, 0% for Imperials, and 5% for Argonians

Healing Received
1st Place: Nords
2nd Place: Argonians
3rd Place: Imperials

For anything that applies a damage shield to you (from either yourself or from outside sources), the effectiveness will be increased by 6.38% for Nords, 0% for Imperials, and 0% for Argonians

Damage Shield Strength
1st Place: Nords
Tied for 2nd Place: Argonians and Imperials

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I am not saying that nords make bad tanks

I'm sorry, but you literally said that Nords are a "garbage race for tanking". I'm not bringing this up and doing all this math to show that Nords are the best tanks in all scenarios, I simply do it to try and show people that Nords, and their rugged passive specifically, are much better than people give them credit for.

As for which race is best overall, I think that largely is dependant on a number of factors. In PvE scenarios where group utility is more important than your own individual survivability, I rank Argonians as the best overall with their superior group heals and resource management, followed by Imperials as long as you are running DK (due to igneous shield) or running a stamina build. For Non-DKs/Magicka builds in PvE, Argonians are still the best, followed by Nords because of their increased survivability over Imperials. For any situation where your own individual survivability is most important, like in PvP where you are more susceptible to being burst down/focus fired, I rank Nords the highest followed by Argonians and then Imperials in third place.

Ultimately, the differences between these three races amount to small, single digit percentages, and people should just go with whichever race they personally prefer to use.