Greetings,

I spent a significant part of the last few days testing 650+ PvE DPS parses across races and class with guild mates, collecting data samples and then analyzing the raw data into comparable formats and finally presented the data into an easy to read format here -> https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/455092/raid-buffed-dps-comparison-of-each-race-by-class-tests-graphs-interpretation-and-final-score/p1
During this testing, I learn certain things about the races, which is more subjective in nature, rather than objective. I will give some details of this subjective data below.
For PvP, it is not that straight forward, as it is not finitely possible to test data objectively, without having access to wide-spread balance information. However, given certain constraints and known tendencies, we can closely approximate the efficiency of particular races in particular builds and overall PvP performance.
I present my feedback on a par race basis down below.

PvE - They are very effective as Magicka DPS. Sustain is similar to Live and feels okayish. Needs some sustain support for best performance.

PvP - Max stat builds got nerfed, more spell damage means that magic damage using builds got buffed. Max recovery builds got nerfed.

Suggested Changes - None, even though I initially thought, they are OP, after testing, I would say they are very balanced.

PvE - That sustain boost feels real good. Of all stamina races, they feel most natural to execute rotations with. This shows on how high consistent parses are. They might just eclipse Redguard on any build that does not use Weapon spammables by a neglible difference.

PvP - They are buffed significantly in PvP too, sustain wise. Though Stealthy passive loss is regrettable, the new roll bonus speed is times more powerful, for every playstyle, even stealthy ones. It is so good that it even might require adjustment. Bosmer, dodging with bow in Stealth, sneaks faster than running. Looks like, finally AD has an answer for a true Brawler race.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - They are rather good damage dealers across most roles with two major flaws, which can even be considered deal breakers for a good number of players. These are poor sustain and extremely bad consistentency/very high variance for every role. This can be understood easily by studying the line graphs in the data sample above. These two issues compound each other. I will explain further below.

The characteristics of this race is the lowest static damage increase stats(Max Stamina/Magicka, Weapon/Spell Damage) even lesser than non-DD races. They are literally carried by their critical chance of 8%, which is huge but entirely luck based. Base sustain is rather poor, compared to every other race. Adding more sustain will come at the cost of further drop of raw damage, which is not really preferable for a race, lacking static damage multipliers.

This can cause major shifts in raid DPS, depending on crit rate of hard hitting abilities in burn phases. This can seen very prominently in the tests. Tn some cases, the initial two Major Force burn phases, resonated perfectly with the crits, DPS stayed high, and I went with low resource strain to the final burn and execute phases. Some cases, the opposite happened causing the initial phases to last stages, forcing a heavy attack in the worst possible time of Major Force execution phase, which is a huge DPS loss. There are a negative spiral can start, where the worse your sustain, the lesser your DPS gets, further straining sustain and the cycle continues. This is why, Khajiit is going to be a generally very unforgiving race to play with.

This instability will skew more towards the lower side of the spectrum for most players, that realistically can not execute perfect rotations for whatever the reason. For higher end players, classes like Dunmer and Orc may be more appealing, as they tends to get similar high parses as the Khajiit, without the low parses due to their static damage increase. Only real solution to somewhat stabilize their DPS, while keeping their overall critical nature intact is to slightly fix their sustain. Essentially, PvE wise, Khajiit are unstable Dunmer with more unforgivable rotations and that is not a really good for the race's identity.

PvP - In PvP, they are literally inferior versions of Dunmer. The primary reason is that, their strongest passive(8% crit) is nullified by the rampant amount of crit resist, most players use. The average PvPer runs anything between 2500 to 4000 crit resist, virtually making that passive useless while Dunmer's Weapon/Spell damage shines here as well. Their resources are lesser than that of Dunmer. Their 5m sneak reduction passive is inferior to Flame Resist and Burning Immunity. Their new tri-stat recovery is a shadow of its previous self for PvP builds. This causes Khajiit to be one of the weakest PvP races, lacking an identity.
Also, from @Left4Daud 's tests, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/455172/a-visual-of-khajiits-new-stealth-capability-stacking-is-quite-extreme/p1, it is shown that the new Stealth passive allows Khajiits to buff Sneak to true Invisibility levels, which means Sneak does not break at all, even when face to face with an enemy. This is massively abusable if left in the game in this state. Changing this passive to the Previous 3m sneak reduction with some additional stealth features might be great.

Suggested Changes
Robustness - 150 Stamina/150 Magicka Recovery. The Health recovery of 100 is virtually useless in every single build in the game.
Feline Ambush - 8% Weapon/Spell Critical Hit Chance. Decreases your sneak radius by 3m and increases your speed when hidden by 12%. This would give Khajiit a proper identity(Stealth moblity unit)

PvE - They are the smoothest magicka DPS. Sustain is the greatest of any race in the game. Can go fully glass cannon in PvE, with minimal group support.

PvP - Max stat builds got nerfed, however their sustain might allow going fully glass cannon. Their natural defense should be handy as well.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - They have the highest sustain of all stamina races, higher than Bosmer. However, their sustain is primarily conditional and will drop considerably in real fights, while Bosmer's sustain is unconditional. They synergize with builds using weapon spammables the best. Their weapon cost reduction passive affects ultimates as well. They are great tanks as well for the conditional sustain.

PvP - Essentially they are Bosmer without the Speed buff and with Weapon skill sustain instead. Should do good for Stamsorcs and StamDKs.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - Great for most stamina DPS tests. Tends to come out to top of other races for most classes. Their sustain, when weapon skills are prioritized is good and decreases need for any group sustain.

PvP - Used to the one of the best PvP stamina races. If anything, they are just going to the get better. Possibly the best PvP stamina race.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - Performly fairly well for most stamina races, synergizing further with StamDK with their Ult generation passive. Same passive made indisputablely winners in the PvE tank category. Possibly great race for healers as well now.

PvP - That ultimate generation can be built around for a great number of builds. Easily, one of the best Stamina PvP races, this time.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - Performly fairly well for most magicka races, as well certain stamina races. High tri-stat makes them still the best sustain tank in the game. They make great healers too.

PvP - Still, should one of the best PvP races with bursty tri-stat sustain.

Suggested Changes - None.

PvE - They perform incredibly well in raids, having the highest buffed stamina DPS numbers almost across the board, while maintaining great magicka DPS numbers as well. This is weird, considering they are a hybrid race. Their natural sustain is low but they have the highest static DPS increase in the stamina side, which allows group sustain help reach high parses, without losing out much on consistency. Essentially, a less random version of Khajiit.

PvP - They should be very good for all PvP builds, with their massive resource stack and raw damage bonus.

Suggested Changes
Dynamic - 2000 Magicka. This should allow them to be at least, not inferior to Altmer for every aspect of magicka DPS, theoritically at the cost stamina.
Resist Flame - 650 stamina, 2310 Flame Resist and Burning Immunity. This would keep them as a great contender for stamina DPS, while also not them superior to pure stamina DPS races.
They would have the theoretical highest raw numbers for both sides without the sustain, showing their lore wise destructive nature.

PvE - Performly fairly well for most stamina races and their health is useful for magicka characters too. They make good tanks as well.

PvP - Their high resources are great for PvP builds in general. They should make great PvP tanks.

Suggested Changes
Red Diamond - When you deal Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to heal for 1750. When you block Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to gain 1750 Stamina. 2 sec CD. This would make them very good pure tanks for PvE and brawlers for PvP, while also displaying their lore wise weapon discipline. The CD will there to stop it from being OP.

This is my honest feedback for the racial changes. Thanks for reading.

@ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RobGarrett @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Finn

for breton i would prefer if they would get some Spell penetration.....

somewhere somehow....

overall i love the changes.... i don't need to focus on regen stuff now that much ...

Khajit : remove health recovery bonus and increase stam & mag recovery to 150

I think Orc is in a fairly decent place. I still feel like the flat value health and stamina should be increased to 1k. 500 is almost nothing and feels like a real waste of a whole racial passive.

Also the 380 heal from Unflinching is super underwhelming. I rather just see that removed and the Stamina return increased to something like 500-700 Stamina. A 190 heal every 4 seconds in Cyrodiil is only useful if you stub your toe and need relief.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

(Sorry for the long post, I have tried to make it as compact as possible):

Here is my initial feedback on the racial changes ZOS has proposed because there are a lot problems that needs to be addressed. I will mostly focus on Argonian racial changes:

Problems / pain points (more details in spoilers):
1. Infused jewellery with potion speed glyphs:

This is the very reason why you had so many people saying that Resourceful passive is too strong.

Argonians only became super popular and very often used (especially in PvP) after Summerset Update. In this update Jewelry Crafting and new jewelry traits were introduced. One of those traits is “Infused” that makes your Glyph Enchantment 60% stronger. When combined with glyph of potions speed it boosts 5 second reduction to 8 seconds. When all 3 jewelry are used like that you can reduce potion cooldown by 24 seconds, meaning that you can drink a potion every 21 seconds instead of 45 seconds.
This means that Argonian Resourceful passive is effectively doubled by that as you can drink potion 2 times within 45 second period. Now lets look at numbers and compare live server to PTS:

Live Server: 4620 Stamina + 4620 Magicka + 46020 Health = 13860 x2 (drinking 2 times within 45 seconds) = 27720 total resources
PTS: 3600 Stamina + 3600 Magicka + 3600 Health = 10800 x2 (drinking 2 times within 45 seconds) = 21600 total resources

As you can see the numbers are slightly lower on PTS but still pretty high, meaning that Argonian running this setup might still be Over Preforming. Also, as you can see above, tweaking / reducing the numbers simply wont work. And additionally if you tweak the numbers too low, Argonians as a race will have nothing to offer.

2. Resourceful passive is not using its full “mathematical” potential 90% of times:

The thing with this passive is that “on paper” it provides a lot of resources. 13860 in total on live server. But the thing is, you can very rarely (almost never in fact) use its full potential and almost always some resources are going to be wasted. Simple example:

You are a tank in a dungeon blocking dmg. You see that you are running out of stamina, so you drink a potion to restore it so you can block dmg. However you do not restore health & magicka simply because those resources are already at 100%. The next thing that often follows this is all the sudden you need magicka, but because your magicka pool is small it is depleted quickly, while your potion is on cooldown.

This is why even though this passive has a high mathematical potential it is never fully used. In short, something might look good on paper but in practice – it is not working AS good. This is why you need to take that into account when calculating effectiveness of each passive.

3. Lack of sense of progression:

The one of your main goals is to make leveling racial passives to feel rewarding. However, in case of Argonian racial passives changes, this feels quite the opposite. You see, when you will reach level 50 on an Argonian character what you will unlock is… a whopping 4% healing done…
This does not feel rewarding at all (as it is the reward for level 50), and you might just stay on level 30 as with level 30 you will unlock stage III of Resourceful passive. Sure, on level 40 you unlock 3% additional health (so with the new changes it will be something like… 250 health ? )

4. Limited use:

After the new changes to Argonian passives go live, all who play this race might find themselves in a very difficult spot. The Resourceful passive is being reduced and the healing received bonus is being taken away. This means that Argonians that were terrible for DPS role but good for a Tank role and good for a Healer role… it will no longer be the case.

You see, changes done to other races will simply make other races far better choices for specific roles. As a healer, Argonians with their 4% healing done will be simply outmatched by: High Elves, Bretons, Dark Elves and even Khajiits.

The same will happen to tank role as Argonians, now lacking the 5% healing received bonus will be outmatched by:
Nord, Orc , Redguard and Imperial

The thing is Argonians are being nerfed in the roles they were good at without any compensation buff for the role they were terrible at (DPS role).

So if this changes go live, taking an Argonian Tank, Healer or DPS to a veteran dungeon or a trial will simply be not worthwhile thus Argonians will not be viable at any role. This also stands in total opposite to the original racial changes goals.

5. All changes done to Argonian racial passives stands in the total opposite to almost of the all original racial changes goals:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/453551/upcoming-racial-balance-changes-for-update-21/p1
1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

In short, Argonians, with those changes will be not viable as a Tank, Healer or DPS (their use will be limited to maybe like 2 – 5 niche builds), they will lose the sense of progression and will heave less options.

Thoughts:
Resourceful: It now restores 3600 magicka, stamina and health. That is 3060 resources reduction across the board. That is 23% reduction. It feels more like a very misguided, panic overreaction and walk around from a real problem, rather than actual solution to the problem.

Suggestions:
- You have a perfect opportunity to make this passive more streamlined and consistent with the rest of the game as attribute points & gear sets tend to provide roughly 10% more health than stamina & magicka.
- Do not focus on reducing the resources that “resourceful passive” gives that much (keep the values somewhere between 3900 – 4200 ) and instead add some form of cooldown to this passive.
- Alternatively, instead of a cooldown you can add diminish return of resources if you drink potion too quickly.
- If you want to keep values at the proposed level (3600), think of adding increased duration of potion effects by [x] seconds to this passive.
- Alternatively, reduce resources this passive gives significantly but add an additional, greater resources gain to your lowest resource pool.

Examples:

A ) Resourceful: Increases your Max Magicka by 1000.
Restore 4290 Health, 3900 Magicka, and 3900 Stamina when you drink a potion. This effect can occur ever 30 seconds.

Comment:

The base values were increased but the cooldown was added. This will reduces its potential high resources sustain, but still will leave some room for builds variety: So people can use some potions speed enchants, but with a limited effectiveness. This will make more important and rewarding to drink your potions more strategically, rather than every time when they are off cooldown.

B ) Resourceful: Increases your Max Magicka by 1000.
Restore 4290 Health, 3900 Magicka, and 3900 Stamina when you drink a potion. If you drink potion sooner than 30 seconds, resources restored by this passive are halved.

Comment:

Instead of cooldown you can add an additional effect that will reduce the values by 2 times if you will drink the potion too fast. So instead of getting 4290 Health, 3900 Magicka, 3900 Stamina you will get: 2145 Health, 1950 Magicka, 1950 Stamina This will be more suitable solution for DPS roles as they can still use potions that buff weapon & spell DMG and get some resources back.

C ) Resourceful: Increases your Max Magicka by 1000. Increase the duration of potion effects by [5] seconds
Restore 3960 Health, 3600 Magicka, and 3600 Stamina when you drink a potion.

Comment:

Slightly lower base resources, but instead you will have 5 second bonus to potion effects. This will be more suitable solution for DPS roles as they can still use potions that buff weapon & spell DMG and get better uptime on those potions.

D ) Resourceful: Increases your Max Magicka by 1000.
Restore 2200 Health, 2000 Magicka, and 2000 Stamina and additional 4800 resources of your current lowest resource pool when you drink a potion.
Comment:

Base resources were reduced significantly and additional, larger pool of resources were added, but only to one of your resources pool. So if you will drink a potion and you are missing 10K health, 8K Magicka and 20K stamina – your stamina will be restored more as more of it is missing.

Quick to Mend (new - Life Mender): This passive also took a strong reduction as now it only boost your healing done by 4%. It is about 60% nerf to its effectiveness.

As I have said earlier this passive in its current state is not worth being the “reward” for level 50. It gives to little. I can imagine people playing the game first time, with limited amount of skill points and when they reach level 50 they will put skill points rather to some weapon or class passives than this. It simply is far less beneficial.
Also it is somewhat contradictory to the lore as in lore, Argonians because of their reptilian bodies and how their metabolism works they can be healed much faster. Some bonus for healing received should still be there.

Suggestions:
- Add… anything to this passive. For a passive that you unlock on level 50 it feels far too weak.
- It can be 4% healing received.
- If not, then at least make it to provide larger bonus to healing done (7 – 8 %).
- If you don’t want to give it an additional % values, add increased health recovery

or

restore [x] health (not much) when you are healed. This effect can occur ever [x] seconds.

Examples:

A ) Quick to Mend (Life Mender): Increases your Healing Done by 7%.

B ) Quick to Mend (Life Mender): Increases your Healing Done by 4% and Healing Received by 4%.

C ) Quick to Mend (Life Mender): Increases your Healing Done by 4%. When you are healed, increase health recovery by 50 for 5 seconds this effect can occur every 10 seconds

D ) Quick to Mend (Life Mender): Increases your Healing Done by 4%. When you are healed, restore 100 health. This effect can occur every 10 seconds.

Now, I hope that some one will read this and will pass this information further. So if you are for example a class representative, please – pass this formation further and share it.

Everyone running currently argonians and with your proposed buff there shall be no need for other races

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Bug: Tooltips for the classes haven't been updated on the character creation screen. For example Argonian References Poison Resistance and Bosmer Disease resistance, its actually the other way around according to the notes. Also Nord references health regen etc..

Re. Imperial, is there a reason why their 12% health boost went to 2k but other classes 10% health boost also went to 2k? why not make Imperial 2.5k?

Brrrofski wrote: »

BaylorCorvette wrote: »

I think Orc is in a fairly decent place. I still feel like the flat value health and stamina should be increased to 1k. 500 is almost nothing and feels like a real waste of a whole racial passive.

Also the 380 heal from Unflinching is super underwhelming. I rather just see that removed and the Stamina return increased to something like 500-700 Stamina. A 190 heal every 4 seconds in Cyrodiil is only useful if you stub your toe and need relief.

It really needs to increase from 500 each to 1k each.

Orc lost 12% overall stats and gained 1k overall stats

Other races like altmer, redguard and Breton lost 10% overall stats and gained 2k stats overall

Basically this. Give Orcs a little more in flat stats and they'll be pretty nice!

I think Imperials really don't need red diamon passive. Healing on damage is not very useful and could be removed or replaced with something way better.

I like A LOT of these changes. Looks to me like there's a few that need raised or lowered. Only actual area of concern is on Dunmer, but I won't go into that because we've heard enough about it already.

The magicka loss from Gift of Magnus was bigger than expected. We had calculated that 1500 or so will be lost. I personally have really lost 2k though. Another proof, math isn't always reliable here.

All my elemental damage has dropped by a 100 on tooltips. The added spell damage to elemental talent can't compensate for this loss. While all of this isn't the end of the world, being weakened again isn't a good feeling.

I cannot get onto the PTS until tomorrow, but how are Khajiits (stam) when compared to the other races?

I find it a little disheartening that my orc is going to be out-DPS'd by dark elves of all races.

Khajiits I'm happy have a place as magicka users now.

Dark elves, I think, have had some backwards changes and I feel like I am going to be forced to race change to Altmer or Breton in order to do decent damage next patch on my sorc.

Imperials feel kind of like watered down nords now (nords are AWESOME with these changes) and don't feel very unique. I also don't like the RNG associated with their health return. Imperials I feel should get some sort of magicka bonus (whether its in stats or return) as they are another versatile race known for having many warriors and mages.

ezio45 wrote: »

Only issue i have with the new racials are darkelf and khajiit

Darkelf is just highelf or redguard with less sustain and resources. I feel like upping darkelfs resources pools would make it a good trade off for stam builds that need more mag or mag builds that need more stam. As of right now though i dont think the trade off is worth it.

Khajiit, I like it. It is a good option for high crit playstyles, both mag or stam. really need to up the regen tho

@ezio45

Khajiit still seem strong for stam dps?