[Intervention successful] Dunmer - No Longer Dead As A Dodo

Berenhir · January 2019

This post made Dunmer great again.
Ju'rohn!

As a dunmer I have always been very sceptical towards the approach of human game design. The nimwiit that run nirn on a neither mechanical nor magical device (and a device jubarhu it is!) somewhere in n'wah cattle land need to be educated about the true power of our people. A power of which they have obviously very little knowledge and respect.

The transformation of racial passives from a percentage amplifier to a fixed stat bonus has a profound impact on character design. While the former idea of amplification with percentual stat increase has been abandoned, the racial passives were brought in line with the sets, consumable and mundus system. This is an important point, so I want to stress it. Whereas in Update 20 the racial bonuses were amplifying and enhancing a certain stat arrangement created from sets, consumables and mundus stones, they now are just integrated into the selection of character stats and procs you can pick. It is now - from a theorycrafter's point of view - of no difference, wether you obtain a certain flat stat from a set, a consumable, a mundus stone or a race.

Focussing on the only relevant race, the Dunmer were granted 1250 Magicka and Stamina, 600 Health and 256 Weapon and Spell Damage. This may seem like a lot of stats for the s'wiit but I can assure you, it is a grave mistake. The attributes of stamina and magicka and health are fairly interchangable with sets, traits and mundus stones or attribute points. While one stat can be transferred into the other in a 1:1 ratio, a stat can also be transferred into all 3 stats in a 1 -> 0,5:0,5:0,6 ratio by the means of triune jewellery or prismatic glyphs. That means that the combined attributes of 3100 of the dunmer actually only translate into ~2k of effective magicka or stamina.

EXAMPLE: An Altmer could trade his racial magicka (2k) with e.g. triune jewelry into 1k stamina - 1k magicka - 1.2k health and reach even better stats than a dunmer's 1.2k - 1.2k - 600.

Why even better you ask, n'wah? Let me shed light onto combat in ESO. You stack the stats your damage scales off. (Period!). The only things that hinder you doing so are the fear of one shots as well as the need of stamina in PvP as a magicka class. Obviously a high elf would be able to get higher health for lower relative magicka cost by the "triune/hakeijo" approach.

So what about stamina you ask? Let's put the finger into the intellectual wound of race design.
While Altmer get an equivalent of 191 Magicka regen [575 return / (6 seconds cooldown * 2 tick every second second

)] for using class abilities, dunmer get nothing sustainwise. So while Altmer could for example drop witch mothers/citrus filet for a more effective triple max food and 1 magicka recovery glyph when the need of stamina occurs, dunmer cannot or only for a much higher price:

No racial passives - nighblade PvE endgame build (siroria/spell strategist/zaan/iceheart/vMA Destro) with witch mother:

No racial passives - nightblade PvE endgame build from above with 1 regen glyph and triple food:

The damage stats stay basically the same (a little lower - we trade spell damage for magicka) while the amount of stamina and health you can obtain from changing a glyph and food is no match for the 3.5k crown cost of a race change to dunmer.

We can conclude - from a PvE or PvP damage dealer perspective, Dunmer is now absolutely inferior to Altmer - which is basically blasphemy.

As a middle-of-the-road Telvanni diplomat I can therefore only advise you to rethink your decisions. Otherwise House Telvanni would finally have to settle the human issue by assigning you your place in the world as our commodity.
I recommend a mild fire damage increase (3-5%) on top of our "new" racial stats.

Tagging the class reps theory crafter for thoughts and input @Masel

KhajiitFelix · January 2019

Zos are n'wahs

Masel · January 2019

Dunmer is only inferior if you see the additional stamina and health as a waste of resources, which is the pure damage perspective. PvP-wise altmer has only two things to compensate for both of them, and that is the little bit of magicka and 70 magicka /s from the passive. From a PvE Stamdpoitn i get the argument, but for pvp the extra health and stamina are very much worthwhile!

Scarpion · January 2019

What? Didn't understand because of your roleplay language.

Berenhir · January 2019

Masel wrote: »

Dunmer is only inferior if you see the additional stamina and health as a waste of resources, which is the pure damage perspective. PvP-wise altmer has only two things to compensate for both of them, and that is the little bit of magicka and 70 magicka /s from the passive. From a PvE Stamdpoitn i get the argument, but for pvp the extra health and stamina are very much worthwhile!

But the extra health and stamina are much more effectively obtained by going triune/hakeijo or trifood in PvP. On paper this might sound equal but due to the difference in effective stat sources it is really not. Especially with the Altmer's magicka return the one stat you have to sacrifice for stamina is partly replaced, making a tri food build on altmer much much much more potent than a witch mother/citrus filet build on dunmer.

gepe87 · January 2019

Masel wrote: »

Dunmer is only inferior if you see the additional stamina and health as a waste of resources, which is the pure damage perspective. PvP-wise altmer has only two things to compensate for both of them, and that is the little bit of magicka and 70 magicka /s from the passive. From a PvE Stamdpoitn i get the argument, but for pvp the extra health and stamina are very much worthwhile!

True. But It's what we get using Dunmer right now. So it's basicaly a minor nerf because %3 mag for 800 health. From PvP it stays near the same for dunmer mag characters. And seriously, who gonna use that weapon damage on a dunmer stam? Those rare hybrid builds? ZoS cleary shows that you must be Mag or Stam (even looking at Class Advisor).

killmove · January 2019

You are wrong!!!

Except the nerf to fire dmg (high elf got that too), he got a pretty good up in spell and weapon dmg

Xvorg · January 2019

I have 0 problems with dunmer hybrid if ZoS makes them viable besides Pelinal's. With this changes and old WW passives and skills, Dunmer was the best option for a decent WW.

zyk · January 2019

It's completely unfair for the Dunmer race to be redefined like this five years into the game.

SaintSubwayy · January 2019

killmove wrote: »

You are wrong!!!

Except the nerf to fire dmg (high elf got that too), he got a pretty good up in spell and weapon dmg

which again, in PVE is a nerf, for good DK players.

258 SD do not compensate the 7%
and thats the about 2k magicka loss left out.

So its a huge derf, towards Dunmer mDK, which may get corrected with classchanges (hopefully)
else the mDK is pretty much dead, because its meele, and sNB are then even stronger compared to nerfed dunmer DK

Xvorg · January 2019

But hey, we have necromancers, we should be happy :v

ZarkingFrued · January 2019

Dark elf is pretty much useless if these changes go through

lucky_Sage · January 2019

They turned dunmer into the hydro race this could actually really help hybrid builds yeah they lost some strait dmg but they got it back in some ways

jaws343 · January 2019

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

killmove wrote: »

You are wrong!!!

Except the nerf to fire dmg (high elf got that too), he got a pretty good up in spell and weapon dmg

which again, in PVE is a nerf, for good DK players.

258 SD do not compensate the 7%
and thats the about 2k magicka loss left out.

So its a huge derf, towards Dunmer mDK, which may get corrected with classchanges (hopefully)
else the mDK is pretty much dead, because its meele, and sNB are then even stronger compared to nerfed dunmer DK

But the 258 can be boosted by spell damage modifiers, while the original 7% could not.

grannas211 · January 2019

Masel wrote: »

Dunmer is only inferior if you see the additional stamina and health as a waste of resources, which is the pure damage perspective. PvP-wise altmer has only two things to compensate for both of them, and that is the little bit of magicka and 70 magicka /s from the passive. From a PvE Stamdpoitn i get the argument, but for pvp the extra health and stamina are very much worthwhile!

This. Not everything has to be about PvE.

ToRelax · January 2019

Masel wrote: »

Dunmer is only inferior if you see the additional stamina and health as a waste of resources, which is the pure damage perspective. PvP-wise altmer has only two things to compensate for both of them, and that is the little bit of magicka and 70 magicka /s from the passive. From a PvE Stamdpoitn i get the argument, but for pvp the extra health and stamina are very much worthwhile!

Like OP said, the passives are inferior to existing hybrid stat options. There is exactly one scenario in which Dunmber would now be the optimal choice, and that is actually building a hybrid character who is going to use all prismatic glyphs and food with at least max stam and mag to begin with.

Checkmath · January 2019

At least for PvP dunmer is still a very good option to build on. Max stats and inherent damage is nothing bad and works almost for any build, especially for builds including a weapon not matching their primary stat.

zyk · January 2019

A slight boost to max stam, max health and 258 weapon damage is not going to be appealing to many existing PVP magicka builds. We could already sacrifice other stats for those things when we wanted to.

Berenhir · January 2019

Checkmath wrote: »

At least for PvP dunmer is still a very good option to build on. Max stats and inherent damage is nothing bad and works almost for any build, especially for builds including a weapon not matching their primary stat.

No, it is not a "very good option" to build on. Spreading your max stats is far more viable on a high elf who has a regen passive to make up for a possible witch mother's loss by going trifood. Trifood is 36% more effective in providing stats than regen food (leaving golden health recovery out because it is basically useless now without the 20-30% racial amplifiers).
Hint:No regen from food is mainly an issue if you do not get regen from - racial passives

So while Dunmer are FORCED to split their attributes in an ineffective way, an Altmer can CHOOSE if he wants to go full damage or spread his stats. As I already showed above, the most effective way of gaining a reasonable amount of stamina on a damage dealer is not going dunmer but going trifood/regenglyph on an altmer. Especially the lack of health (which is as important in PvP and even more important in PvE than stam on a magDD) absolutely disincentivizes the choice of Dunmer over tristat glyphs or food or triune jewellery.

Another point is the freedom of choice. As an Altmer, I can CHOOSE to go full damage or spread my ressources (even more effectively than a dunmer can). As a Dunmer I cannot reach the damage and sustain of an Altmer.

You class rep guys mostly know how to build properly, there is no reason to support this utter nonsense of an ineffective stat spread. If ZOS wants to incentivize hybrid speccing with the racial choice of dunmer they either give Dunmers 1.2k health instead of 600 or they give dunmer a small crit bonus to weapon and spell crit.

The addition of weapon damage is not a countable stat on its own as the only really viable way to go hybrid is stacking weapon damage with pelinal's and magicka and stamina regen. Even in this scenario, a khajiit would be the better choice than dunmer because they get a (miniscule) regen passive and the most difficult to obtain stat for a hybrid: double crit.

All in all the math behind the tristat bonus to dunmer is just seriously flawed and does not take into account the way people actually build stats on their toons. It is inferior to tristat glyphs/traits in any PvE scenario where health is the desired ressource besides the actual main stat. It is inferior to a consumabe change and the tristat approach in PvP where obviously offstat regen is far more important than the actual offstat max value. Additionally, there is - among other options - a 36% (!!!!) more effective way to get max stats evenly and an overall more effective way by going tristat when building health and stamina on a magicka spec.

EDIT:

Another idea for dunmer is to give them off stat recovery:
When you deal damage, you gain 600 stamina/magicka, whichever resource is LOWER. Happens every 6 seconds. Still not the best magicka DDs out there but actually a useful passive for PvP.

Berenhir · January 2019

-delete-

ZarkingFrued · January 2019

Just glad I get a free race change token cause dunmer is garbo now

Azyle1 · January 2019

Dunmer may be one of the better stam based DPS now.

Lughlongarm · January 2019

Dead as DoDo sure, probably top stamina dps , probably best hybrid option, probably best race for vampire builds.

Savos_Saren · January 2019

Technically, with a Pelinal's build- you lose either side of your weapon OR spell damage since it scales off of one or the other. 258 magic damage will do absolutely nothing for a mDK Dunmer if you're wearing Pelinals and buffing up your weapon damage.

Unless ZOS starts making hybrid sets that scale off of BOTH weapon and spell damage- mDK hybrids with Pelinal still got nerfed. They still don't get that extra bonus from fire damage (which, in turn, adds to their damage and heals) so it's a net loss of survivability, too.

Edit: I'm still going to test it in PTS- but I'm really hoping ZOS starts offering more hybrid sets if they're going to pigeonhole Dunmer into hybrid builds.

notimetocare · January 2019

zyk wrote: »

It's completely unfair for the Dunmer race to be redefined like this five years into the game.

You might be right, but better late than never
Racials should have been like this since the removal of soft caps. Hopefully the changes to cp, that are supposed to happen, are similar. Infinite scaling is the biggest issue in ESO combat.

Kadoin · January 2019

I have a Dunmer mag DK and I'm happy with the changes. Just wanted to point that out

ezio45 · January 2019

I think darkelf would do well if they upped the mag and stam a little

John_Falstaff · January 2019

@ezio45 , stat-wise, according to @Masel's numbers, dunmer is actually on top of stamina DPS when it comes to damage. Sustain isn't the best though.

ezio45 · January 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@ezio45 , stat-wise, according to @Masel's numbers, dunmer is actually on top of stamina DPS when it comes to damage. Sustain isn't the best though.

i think op was referring to dummer as part of the mag build.

also where are masels #s at? im curious as to how all the other races are

idk · January 2019

Won't dumner be good for hybrids? I ask because I do not play DPS hybrids.

John_Falstaff · January 2019

@ezio45 , I've just read your "...stam a little", hence me mentioning that stam-wise, dunmer seems to be all right. And numbers are here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/453551/upcoming-racial-balance-changes-for-update-21/p18

I'll just quote fully so it'll stick around:

Masel wrote: »

Let me give you a statement on why I see these changes as an overall improvement. First, let me clear a few things up that people do not seem to understand when they look at these changes:

1. Flat stats are a buff, NOT a nerf. These get amplified by all % buffs you have and will translate to at least the same stat density as before, in many instances even more. In no CP content and instances where you have warhorn available, this is a significant buff especially.
2. On magicka races, sure you can say that altmer is the best race when it comes to the pure dps output while neglecting any sustain component. However, that's neglecting additional factors that come in. Khajiit has spell crit, magicka recovery that effectively translates into roughly the same sustain that altmer gets, they have max magicka AND 8% spell critical, which will benefit more from additional critical damage you have in group content and will be especially effective on templars and nightblades. Factoring in sustain, bretons are incredibly strong in that regard, so much so that they are a valid choice for any class that struggles with sustain and also allows using BLUE food in most instances, plus giving resistance and a flat recovery that always ticks. Also people seem to neglect the additional health that khajiit gets, which is very valuable in many instances. Dunmer is the most versatile race now since it can do both specs and also gets health. If you wanted to min/max 100% dunmer is not the ideal choice for dps (again neglecting the aspects from above), but the difference is ~1k magicka and 60-70 magicka per second. The altmer sustain component also only functions when you actually cast a class ability, whereas breton and khajiit have a passive that always ticks.
3. Stamina races are very very close to each other, especially in actual fights. People seem to think redguard is still the ultimate best, but this is not the case. Bosmer, orc, khajiit, dunmer are all viable. Redguard requires you to deal DIRECT damage now to benefit from the adrenaline rush, which is a significant reduction in effectiveness from what we had before, since it will not proc on DoT-abilities. The weapon cost reduction also requires you to cast abilities to be effective. Bosmer is 100% on par with redguard sustainwise. 258 recovery that ticks all the time is a lot and will net you a higher gain than the passives redguards have in many instances in PvE and PvE. Orc has higher damage compared to these two, but a bit less sustain. Khajiit is still a very viable choice and the sustain is basically unchanged from what they had before. I'm not 100% satisifed on the imperial side because they don't really have anything that benefits their role as a DD in pve, but for tanking they definetely became better.

In order to prove some of this, i made an excel sheet where i implemented these into a standard build for stamina and magicka DDs in PvE. Magicka build was (as far as i remember) Zaan, Siroria and Sorrow/Spell Strategist, while the stamina version uses Relequen+Advancing Yokeda+Velidreth.
Formula is the same as above.

Here's the comparison of effective spell power and weapon power:

Here, altmer comes out as the clear winner, and for stamina, dunmer puts out the highest damage. This does not yet factor in sustain components. In order to do so, I introduced a ranking system that basically just ranks races based on damage and sustain with equal weights. The weights can ofc be adjusted, so if sustain is more important to you, the ranks will change accordingly.

With equal weights, altmer still comes out on top, but not by much. Shifting the weights towards sustain more and more makes breton the best choice.

Shifting the weights to 30% sustain and 70% damage yields the following:

And the other way around:

It all depends on what you need, and the gaps are not as cear and big as many make them seem.