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PvE Healer Race Guide (Wrathstone DLC/PTS) OUTDATED

FakeFox
FakeFox
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PvE Healer Race Guide (Wrathstone DLC/PTS)
In this guide, I have calculated, tested, and compared the impact of all the different racial passives on a PvE healer build. All presented values are just reference points and the exact numbers differ depending on the build and situation. I am, additionally, giving my own opinions and interpretations in order to present the information. Should any of the racial passives be changed over the course of the PTS or in the transition to the live server, I will update the guide accordingly.

Sustain
I split up my calculations into drain and recovery because both values behave very differently. In each category, I have looked at all races that have any passives affecting those areas.

Drain
To give a general overview of a healer’s magicka cost and the behaviour of Breton’s and Redguard’s cost reduction passives, I have calculated two possible rotations with 30 abilities (~30s). Both rotations are similar in terms of provided buffs and represent a realistic sequence in a static raid environment. Please keep in mind, however, that a healer’s rotation is highly situational. All calculations were made with seven pieces of light armor giving which give 14% cost reduction and no additional effects like glyphs or the Worm Cult cost reduction bonus.
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As you can see a Breton has a significantly lower average and total cost, even though a Redguard’s weapon skills have a lower cost. The majority of a healer’s magicka is usually not spent on weapon skills which makes the effect of a Breton’s magicka cost reduction outperform a Redguard’s weapon ability cost reduction.
The effect of both passives is noticeable with a Breton having an average of ~8% less magicka drain and a Redguard having ~3%.

Recovery
I then calculated the additional magicka gain for each race with a recovery passive (Imperial, Breton, Argonian, Khajiit); again the results vary depending on the exact build being used. The following is a theoretical calculation of a generic build that fits the rotations used in the previous section.
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It can be seen that all the results are very close. The high amount of different modifiers make the impact of each modifier very small and in an actual combat situation with additional magicka gain from synergies, potions, Magickasteal, and class abilities it gets even smaller. Nevertheless, I want to give you my personal ranking:

1. Breton
Apart from having one of the highest totals, a Breton’s magicka recovery scales very well and isn’t tied to a mechanic which makes it very strong and reliable.

2. Khajiit
Similar to a Breton, a Khajiit has magicka recovery as a passive which means it scales well and is also reliable. That being said, the numbers are lower than a Breton’s thus putting Khajiit in second place.

3. Argonian
Argonians have a little bit more recovery than Khajiits (in my calculation), however, it is tied to an additional mechanic which forces Argonians to take potions on cooldown to get the maximum effect. This makes their recovery passive, in my opinion, a little bit worse than Breton’s and Khajiit’s; however, the passive is still very reliable.

4. Imperial
Imperial’s sustain passive is the weakest in my calculation and additionally suffers from being the least reliable. It is triggered by dealing direct damage, which can lead to delays, impacting recovery.

Healing Power
In order to determine the healing power of each race, I used ingame testing instead of mathematical calculations, because this is easier for me. All tests were done on a Warden using the Elinhir Private Arena to inflict damage. I did use a representative amount of modifiers that I would usually have in a combat situation (Major Sorcery, Major Courage, Minor Mending, CP), except health based scaling, because it would falsify the results. The magicka-health balance was adjusted to ~17,200 HP such that races with health passives were fairly scaled.
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The results show that Altmers and Dunmers with their offensive stat bonuses will outperform Argonians percent scaling, however this is not by much. Bretons and Khajiits are close behind with their magicka passives. ‘Other’ sums up the stats for all races without additional magicka or health passives and the races with a health bonus that are not included can all get results in between Bretons and ‘Other’ with a corresponding magicka-health balance.

I therefore conclude that, in general, races with max magicka, spell power, healing, and spell critical are better in terms of healing power and overall stat balance. Races that have a max health bonus can compensate for this with an appropriate build in most situations, however, they can struggle with having too much HP in certain situations or builds.

Survivability
Since many races have bonuses for different types of resistances I also calculated their impacts. In this section, however, the interpretation is the most important part.
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The actual damage decrease of all those resistances is between 3.5%-9.5%; in order put those numbers into context I have calculated an example with a standard healer build.
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With a PvE healer’s normal damage mitigation being between 30-50% an additional 3.5% is a considerable amount. However, the majority of PvE fights are heavily weighted towards a single damage type (like elemental damage) and groups have options for additional mitigation in phases where heavy damage occurs, leading to situations like the second example, reducing the impact of those racial passives. Furthermore, healers are, in most cases more survivable than DDs which further reduces the need for those specific bonuses.

In general PvE content is strongly balanced towards magical damage types, particularly magic, fire, and shock, which makes the specific resistances towards disease, poison, and frost of Bosmer, Argonian, and Nord less effective. The spell and fire resistances of Breton, Nord, and Dunmer are more useful, especially when countering vampires vulnerability to fire.

Healing and Max Health
Some races also have additional healing or max health bonuses, both which generally count towards survivability, however, are in my opinion less impactful and harder to properly calculate. Especially healing has very little impact because it does not influence the effective health. Max health, on the other hand, does count towards the effective health, however, goes into the general magicka-health balance and as such has many other, as well as, better sources.

Stamina and Movement
In my opinion, stamina and movement both influence survivability. However, I just want to generally explain them without a mathematical approach. PvE healers generally have access to enough stamina sustain and movement tools which makes a particular race choice not necessary (in my opinion). Kiter or hybrid roles, regularly performed by healers, are however an exception and often require increased stamina sustain and over 30% movement speed. In order to meet those requirements, healers have to run specialized builds and being a race with better movement and sustain as Bosmer or Orc can actually be interesting in those scenarios. I personally would nevertheless not make this a criteria for choosing my race.

Ultimate
Nords unique bonus to ultimate generation make it a potentially good choice therefore I constructed this section to determine the actual impact of this passive. My calculation is under ideal circumstances, due to this passive being triggered by incoming damage, the ultimate gain will likely be lower in real encounters.
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The additional ultimate generation is actually significant, however, it is important to include that the general Warhorn uptime is over 100% in the majority of fights which reduces to the added uptime to Major Force only. I could not get any exact numbers but I estimate that the DPS impact for a raid group is ~0.1%, given that the uptime would only increase by 13% which applies to only one half to one fifth of the total Major Force uptime and Major Force in general only a few percent of the total DPS.
Additionally, this passive only ticks once every 10s making the scaling with the decisive weapon trait very weak.

Conclusions
I have come to a conclusion for every race, including those that don’t have any direct benefit for healers so that non-meta players may see the benefits their race might situationally bring and so that nobody can complain about elitism or favouritism.

Altmer
High Elf is a very solid choice providing the strongest healing while having additional stamina recovery. The race only lacks in survivability and magicka sustain.

+ 645 Stamina up to every 6 Seconds (~107 S/s | not scaling )
+ 2000 Max Magicka
+ 258 Spell Power

Bosmer
A unique movement speed bonus and very good stamina sustain can make Wood Elf a potentially good choice for a kiter role. However, apart from that, it does very little for a healer.

+ 258 Stamina recovery (129 S/s | scales with %-recovery)
+ 2000 Max Stamina
+ 10% Movement Speed for 3s after Roll Dodge
+ 2310 Poison Resistance

Dunmer
Dunmer provides high healing values with an overall good stat balance and survivability which synergizes well with vampirism. It lacks in magicka sustain but is still a very solid choice in my opinion.

+ 1875 Max Magicka and Stamina
+ 2310 Flame Resistance
+ 258 Spell Power

Orc
Like Bosmer, Orc has increased movement and stamina sustain, making it potentially good for a kiter role. Otherwise Orc has no other relevant passives for a healer.

+ 2000 Max Stamina
+ 12% Sprint Cost Reduction and 10% Sprint Speed

Breton
Having the best magicka sustain, with the lowest overall drain and the highest and most reliable recovery makes Breton a very strong choice. Additionally, the increased spell resistance allows for more offensive builds, further profiting from the max magicka bonus, and synergizes very well with vampirism. The only downside is its lack of stamina sustain and thereby movement.

+ 7% Magicka Cost Reduction
+ 100 Magicka Recovery (50 M/s | scaling with %-recovery)
+ 2000 Max Magicka
+ 2310 Spell Resistance (4620 when chilled, burning or concussed)

Redguard
A PvE healers magicka output is not caused by many weapon abilities and therefore the cost reduction is rather underwhelming. The excellent stamina sustain can be beneficial but that alone does not make Redguard worth playing ( in my opinion ).

+ 8% Weapon Ability Cost Reduction
+ 2000 Max Stamina
+ 950 Stamina every 5s (~190 S/s | not scaling)
+ 15% Snare reduction

Imperial
Both health and stamina are potentially useful stats for a PvE healer, however, they make Imperial very inflexible in terms of stat-balance. The recovery passive is weaker and less reliable that those of other races, making it, in my opinion, one of the worst picks for a healer.

+ 2000 Max Health and Stamina
+ 333 Magicka and Stamina every 5s (~66 M/s | ~66 S/s | not scaling)

Nord
Since Nords are the only race that can actively increase Group-DPS by using Warhorn more often, it could be argued that they are therefore the best choice for a PvE healer. In my opinion however, this effect is too weak and unreliable to make Nords a definitive best race. They do have a wide spectrum of other useful stats and are therefore still a great choice if magicka sustain is not a problem.

+ 5 Ultimate every 10s ( 0,5 U/s | 1 tick every 10s for Decisive)
+ 1500 Max Stamina
+ 1000 Max Health
+ 3960 Physical and Spell Resistance
+ 2310 Cold Resistance

Argonian
While being a little bit behind the top picks in sustain and healing power, everybody's favourite slave race is very well rounded. The additional stamina sustain and survivability make Argonian a very good choice for any kind of kiter or hybrid role, but they also perform well as a regular healer.

+ 4000 Magicka and Stamina every 45s ( ~88 M/s | ~88 S/s | scales with potion cooldown)
+ 1000 Max Magicka and Health
+ 6% Healing done
+ 2310 Disease Resistance

Khajiit
Khajiit is a generally well-balanced race for a PvE healer however it lacks distinct advantages and is generally weaker than some other choices like Breton, Altmer, or Argonian. Spell critical chance is unreliable and scales badly for healing.

+ 85 Stamina and Magicka Recovery (~42 S/s | ~42 M/s | scaling with %-recovery)
+ 825 Max Magicka, Stamina and Health
+ 8% Spell Critical Chance

As a general conclusion, I have to say that race is secondary for a healer and only becomes important in top tier endgame PvE. Any race can potentially perform flawlessly, as a healers efficiency is mostly not dependant on stats. Playing a more well-suited race, however, makes performing well noticeably easier.

I have used many tests, calculations, and addons that were created by other players in the creation of this guide therefore a big thank you to all those amazing theory crafters and addon creators!

Thank you for proof reading and editing Lotte!

Sources:
Magicka Recovery vs. Cost Reduction
Damage Mitigation: Explanation
Is Decisive Trait Worthwhile? ~Tay's Ultimate Generation Simulator~
A comprehensive guide on damage dealing in Elder Scrolls Online
Edited by FakeFox on March 20, 2019 6:25PM
EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • Cravalllo
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    Thank you for your research, time to test it and writing it all down!! I am sure everyone can find the information they need on here! Well done :)
    Edited by Cravalllo on January 26, 2019 11:42AM
  • Tryxus
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    Thank you so much for this. Very interesting read and very informative for healers :)
    "The Oak's Promise: stand strong, stay true, and shelter all"
    Tryxus of the Undying Song - Warden - PC/EU/DC
  • Olupajmibanan
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    Thank you!

    One thing to note about Nord. In a perfect 4 horn rotation, other healer and tanks must be Nords as well in order to to achieve somewhat higher Major Force uptime. That's the only situation where we can realisticaly think about Nord healer.
    Edited by Olupajmibanan on January 26, 2019 12:19PM
  • FakeFox
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    Thank you!

    One thing to note about Nord. In a perfect 4 horn rotation, other healer and tanks must be Nords as well in order to to achieve somewhat higher Major Force uptime. That's the only situation where we can realisticaly think about Nord healer.

    Yes, that is why I estimate the impact to be under one percent for a single healer.
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • sneakymitchell
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    Thank you!

    One thing to note about Nord. In a perfect 4 horn rotation, other healer and tanks must be Nords as well in order to to achieve somewhat higher Major Force uptime. That's the only situation where we can realisticaly think about Nord healer.

    Yes, that is why I estimate the impact to be under one percent for a single healer.

    Just hopefully when ZOS finally added undaunted ulti hopefully it will give out major force and something else like major beserk for one of the morphs. Or it’s going be synergy base since it’s undaunted.
    NA-Xbox one- Ebonheart Pact- Nord Tank DK
    PC-NA Ebonheart Pact Nord Stam Templar
  • Aloha
    Aloha
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    Thank you :)

    You rock !
  • OolongSnakeTea
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    Now all my characters can be dunmer for all my roles and I can justify it!
    "I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose."– Stephen King



  • Silver_Strider
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    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.
    Edited by Silver_Strider on January 31, 2019 1:28AM
    Argonian forever
  • FakeFox
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    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.

    I agree for dungeons, but every trial has more or less constant small amounts of incoming damage.
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • Silver_Strider
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.

    I agree for dungeons, but every trial has more or less constant small amounts of incoming damage.

    While I won't deny that all trials have plenty of residual damage, there are periods in which its entirely possible to not be hit within the 10 second CD timer on Stalwart that diminishes the overall value of the passive. It's 0.5 Ultimate/sec at the absolutely best case scenario and it's possible that even a Nord Tank won't hit that 100% of the time, every time. If a Healer could only get it about 60% of the time (a far more realistic uptime on a Healer), you're looking at 0.3 Ultimate/sec and that's such a small amount that it's not even worth it. It would take ~8-9 minutes with a 100% uptime just for Stalwart to generator enough ultimate to get 1 Warhorn on its own but at 60% uptime, you're looking at ~13-14 minutes. Not many vet trial boss last that long, you'll have died to enrage long before that point in some of them, meaning the racial is practically useless outside of Tank roles or PvP. The only thing this racial is doing is speeding up the times between Warhorns by a handful of seconds, at best, but Warhorn uptime itself isn't that huge of a thing but rather the uptime of Major Force is and getting Major Force slightly faster isn't going to warrant much of a shift in the Trial Meta game as it's entirely possible that will have you sit on a Warhorn BECAUSE of the racial, for several seconds anyways which just makes it completely moot at that point.

    Something to note as well is Healer DPS. Between WoE, Shards, etc. a Nord Healer just is not going to be pumping out the same numbers as a Breton or Altmer Healer, not by a long shot and unless that Ultimate regen is powerful enough to offset that discrepancy of weaker Healer DPS, is it worth the potential loss of damage for this? I don't think it would.

    Finally, there's the Decisive trait. You can try and justify that Stalwart has some synergy with Decisive and technically it does but an Infused Weakening/Crusher Enchantment is just way too good for a Healer to pass up, especially since 1h+S is getting indirectly nerfed by the enchantment changes and Healers will be more than likely looked at to pick up the slack now, even if only in part. Coupled with the RNG nature of Decisive and I just don't see an argument for Nord Healers being suddenly this overwhelming presence in the healer end game. It'll have a highly specific niche that revolves around taking as many unnecessary hits on purpose to try and make the most of its only useful racial to play catch up to the Magic races that completely mop the floor with it, hand over fist in that role and honestly, that's not a particularly attractive niche to be caught in.

    Edit: Adjusted incorrect math.
    Edited by Silver_Strider on January 31, 2019 12:36PM
    Argonian forever
  • FakeFox
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.

    I agree for dungeons, but every trial has more or less constant small amounts of incoming damage.

    While I won't deny that all trials have plenty of residual damage, there are periods in which its entirely possible to not be hit within the 10 second CD timer on Stalwart that diminishes the overall value of the passive. It's 0.5 Ultimate/sec at the absolutely best case scenario and it's possible that even a Nord Tank won't hit that 100% of the time, every time. If a Healer could only get it about 60% of the time (a far more realistic uptime on a Healer), you're looking at 0.15 Ultimate/sec and that's such a small amount that it's not even worth it. It would take ~8-9 minutes with a 100% uptime just for Stalwart to generator enough ultimate to get 1 Warhorn on its own but at 60% uptime, you're looking at a whooping 27 minutes. No vet trial lasts that long, you'll have died to enrage long before that point, meaning the racial is practically useless outside of Tank roles or PvP. The only thing this racial is doing is speeding up the times between Warhorns by a handful of seconds, at best, but Warhorn uptime itself isn't that huge of a thing but rather the uptime of Major Force is and getting Major Force slightly faster isn't going to warrant much of a shift in the Trial Meta game as it's entirely possible that will have you sit on a Warhorn BECAUSE of the racial, for several seconds anyways which just makes it completely moot at that point.

    Something to note as well is Healer DPS. Between WoE, Shards, etc. a Nord Healer just is not going to be pumping out the same numbers as a Breton or Altmer Healer, not by a long shot and unless that Ultimate regen is powerful enough to offset that discrepancy of weaker Healer DPS, is it worth the potential loss of damage for this? I don't think it would.

    Finally, there's the Decisive trait. You can try and justify that Stalwart has some synergy with Decisive and technically it does but an Infused Weakening/Crusher Enchantment is just way too good for a Healer to pass up, especially since 1h+S is getting indirectly nerfed by the enchantment changes and Healers will be more than likely looked at to pick up the slack now, even if only in part. Coupled with the RNG nature of Decisive and I just don't see an argument for Nord Healers being suddenly this overwhelming presence in the healer end game. It'll have a highly specific niche that revolves around taking as many unnecessary hits on purpose to try and make the most of its only useful racial to play catch up to the Magic races that completely mop the floor with it, hand over fist in that role and honestly, that's not a particularly attractive niche to be caught in.

    Shouldn't 60% be 0,3 U/s? Decisive should not be a factor for this passive, 0,1 tick per second is under 10% increased efficiency for the trait.
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • IronWooshu
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    This is why I am hoping Nord gets his ultimate passive changed to "in combat" and 5 ult every 8 seconds or just remove the damn passive because its so damn niche and give us 2000 stamina 258 weapon damage 100 stam recovery on top of 4k resists.

    However if Nord gets his passive changed to in combat and lower cooldown he will be more viable for every role and healers will defiantly look towards Nord, even DPS and not just tanks.

    I don't know why ZoS specifically wanting races to play every role made Nord so tank focused when all they had to do was change "taking damage" to "in combat" and it opens the race right up to their every role stereotype.
    Edited by IronWooshu on January 31, 2019 9:11AM
  • Silver_Strider
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    FakeFox wrote: »
    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.

    I agree for dungeons, but every trial has more or less constant small amounts of incoming damage.

    While I won't deny that all trials have plenty of residual damage, there are periods in which its entirely possible to not be hit within the 10 second CD timer on Stalwart that diminishes the overall value of the passive. It's 0.5 Ultimate/sec at the absolutely best case scenario and it's possible that even a Nord Tank won't hit that 100% of the time, every time. If a Healer could only get it about 60% of the time (a far more realistic uptime on a Healer), you're looking at 0.15 Ultimate/sec and that's such a small amount that it's not even worth it. It would take ~8-9 minutes with a 100% uptime just for Stalwart to generator enough ultimate to get 1 Warhorn on its own but at 60% uptime, you're looking at a whooping 27 minutes. No vet trial lasts that long, you'll have died to enrage long before that point, meaning the racial is practically useless outside of Tank roles or PvP. The only thing this racial is doing is speeding up the times between Warhorns by a handful of seconds, at best, but Warhorn uptime itself isn't that huge of a thing but rather the uptime of Major Force is and getting Major Force slightly faster isn't going to warrant much of a shift in the Trial Meta game as it's entirely possible that will have you sit on a Warhorn BECAUSE of the racial, for several seconds anyways which just makes it completely moot at that point.

    Something to note as well is Healer DPS. Between WoE, Shards, etc. a Nord Healer just is not going to be pumping out the same numbers as a Breton or Altmer Healer, not by a long shot and unless that Ultimate regen is powerful enough to offset that discrepancy of weaker Healer DPS, is it worth the potential loss of damage for this? I don't think it would.

    Finally, there's the Decisive trait. You can try and justify that Stalwart has some synergy with Decisive and technically it does but an Infused Weakening/Crusher Enchantment is just way too good for a Healer to pass up, especially since 1h+S is getting indirectly nerfed by the enchantment changes and Healers will be more than likely looked at to pick up the slack now, even if only in part. Coupled with the RNG nature of Decisive and I just don't see an argument for Nord Healers being suddenly this overwhelming presence in the healer end game. It'll have a highly specific niche that revolves around taking as many unnecessary hits on purpose to try and make the most of its only useful racial to play catch up to the Magic races that completely mop the floor with it, hand over fist in that role and honestly, that's not a particularly attractive niche to be caught in.

    Shouldn't 60% be 0,3 U/s? Decisive should not be a factor for this passive, 0,1 tick per second is under 10% increased efficiency for the trait.

    My mistake, you're correct. Doesn't really matter though since even with that adjustment, it's still a ~13-14 minute wait to get Warhorn from this passive and it doesn't really make much of a difference to the argument.
    Edited by Silver_Strider on January 31, 2019 12:42PM
    Argonian forever
  • FakeFox
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    FakeFox wrote: »
    Stalwart: Gain 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

    I want to bring attention to the bold part of this passive and I want someone to continue to tell me a Nord Healer is going to keep that on CD with any sense of reliability. In hectic fights, sure, you might get a proc or 2 here and there but let's be realistic here, 90% of mechanics now are "you get hit, you die". There is no reliable way a Healer is going to get hit enough to justify rolling a Nord to make that passive worth a damn in any practical sense.

    I agree for dungeons, but every trial has more or less constant small amounts of incoming damage.

    While I won't deny that all trials have plenty of residual damage, there are periods in which its entirely possible to not be hit within the 10 second CD timer on Stalwart that diminishes the overall value of the passive. It's 0.5 Ultimate/sec at the absolutely best case scenario and it's possible that even a Nord Tank won't hit that 100% of the time, every time. If a Healer could only get it about 60% of the time (a far more realistic uptime on a Healer), you're looking at 0.15 Ultimate/sec and that's such a small amount that it's not even worth it. It would take ~8-9 minutes with a 100% uptime just for Stalwart to generator enough ultimate to get 1 Warhorn on its own but at 60% uptime, you're looking at a whooping 27 minutes. No vet trial lasts that long, you'll have died to enrage long before that point, meaning the racial is practically useless outside of Tank roles or PvP. The only thing this racial is doing is speeding up the times between Warhorns by a handful of seconds, at best, but Warhorn uptime itself isn't that huge of a thing but rather the uptime of Major Force is and getting Major Force slightly faster isn't going to warrant much of a shift in the Trial Meta game as it's entirely possible that will have you sit on a Warhorn BECAUSE of the racial, for several seconds anyways which just makes it completely moot at that point.

    Something to note as well is Healer DPS. Between WoE, Shards, etc. a Nord Healer just is not going to be pumping out the same numbers as a Breton or Altmer Healer, not by a long shot and unless that Ultimate regen is powerful enough to offset that discrepancy of weaker Healer DPS, is it worth the potential loss of damage for this? I don't think it would.

    Finally, there's the Decisive trait. You can try and justify that Stalwart has some synergy with Decisive and technically it does but an Infused Weakening/Crusher Enchantment is just way too good for a Healer to pass up, especially since 1h+S is getting indirectly nerfed by the enchantment changes and Healers will be more than likely looked at to pick up the slack now, even if only in part. Coupled with the RNG nature of Decisive and I just don't see an argument for Nord Healers being suddenly this overwhelming presence in the healer end game. It'll have a highly specific niche that revolves around taking as many unnecessary hits on purpose to try and make the most of its only useful racial to play catch up to the Magic races that completely mop the floor with it, hand over fist in that role and honestly, that's not a particularly attractive niche to be caught in.

    Shouldn't 60% be 0,3 U/s? Decisive should not be a factor for this passive, 0,1 tick per second is under 10% increased efficiency for the trait.

    My mistake, you're correct. Doesn't really matter though since even with that adjustment, it's still a ~13-14 minute wait to get Warhorn from this passive and it doesn't really make much of a difference to the argument.

    I guess I should have gone into more detail on the function of this passive to begin with, I will change it once I get around to it. Thanks for the interesting feedback. :)
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • JPcrazysquirrel3
    JPcrazysquirrel3
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    ZOS: "We feel like our players should be able to play any race, any way they want. So we've reworked all racial passives to better fit our vision."

    *makes Nord passive that only procs from damage taken*

    basically saying that Nords will only be good for tanking or soloing

    GG, ZOS
    Edited by JPcrazysquirrel3 on January 31, 2019 10:42PM
    "Wood Elves aren't made of wood. Sea Elves aren't made of water. M'aiq still wonders about High Elves."
    "It's just not a home until you decorate the torture chamber, am I right?"
    "If you want to lose 10lbs of ugly fat, I'd be happy to chop your head off!"
    "Degenerates!" --- Todd Howard
    "If it's not broke, don't fix it,....unless you're ZO$ and are just doing it for the money!" --- Me
    Mayrael wrote: »
    Class reps are just like our politicians. They promise mountains made of gold for us, but in the end, whenever they can they try to push their own agenda.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Bio:
    I am in a Kevduit video
    PS4 (main platform)
    --- JP_Dovahkriid

    PC (just for PTS since Dragon Bones)
    --- JP_Dovahkriid

    Playing since console release in 2015

    17 characters; mainly play PvE tanks and healer, as well as PvP stamDK, magplar, and stamblade; I also have a handful of DPS toons to have variety. All AD, with one, now PvE, DC toon.

    I was on the forums before, but something happened with my account info and I had to create a new account.
  • FakeFox
    FakeFox
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    ZOS: "We feel like our players should be able to play any race, any way they want. So we've reworked all racial passives to better fit our vision."

    *makes Nord passive that only procs from damage taken*

    basically saying that Nords will only be good for tanking or soloing

    GG, ZOS

    That statement is complete nonsense anyway, as a lot of races are either complete magicka or complete stamina.
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • Hotdog_23
    Hotdog_23
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    Nice read thanks for sharing.
  • sionIV
    sionIV
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    PvE Healer Race Guide (Wrathstone DLC/PTS)

    Imperial
    Both health and stamina are potentially useful stats for a PvE healer, however, they make Imperial very inflexible in terms of stat-balance, making it, in my opinion, one of the worst picks for a healer.

    + 2000 Max Health and Stamina

    This is turning into a trend when it comes to the Imperial race.
  • IzzyStardust
    IzzyStardust
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    PvE Healer Race Guide (Wrathstone DLC/PTS)
    In this guide, I have calculated, tested, and compared the impact of all the different racial passives on a PvE healer build. All presented values are just reference points and the exact numbers differ depending on the build and situation. I am, additionally, giving my own opinions and interpretations in order to present the information. Should any of the racial passives be changed over the course of the PTS or in the transition to the live server, I will update the guide accordingly.

    Sustain
    I split up my calculations into drain and recovery because both values behave very differently. In each category, I have looked at all races that have any passives affecting those areas.

    Drain
    To give a general overview of a healer’s magicka cost and the behaviour of Breton’s and Redguard’s cost reduction passives, I have calculated two possible rotations with 30 abilities (~30s). Both rotations are similar in terms of provided buffs and represent a realistic sequence in a static raid environment. Please keep in mind, however, that a healer’s rotation is highly situational. All calculations were made with seven pieces of light armor giving which give 14% cost reduction and no additional effects like glyphs or the Worm Cult cost reduction bonus.
    hniqyzkqo06u.jpgizew8lmp7e2j.jpg
    As you can see a Breton has a significantly lower average and total cost, even though a Redguard’s weapon skills have a lower cost. The majority of a healer’s magicka is usually not spent on weapon skills which makes the effect of a Breton’s magicka cost reduction outperform a Redguard’s weapon ability cost reduction.
    The effect of both passives is noticeable with a Breton having an average of ~8% less magicka drain and a Redguard having ~3%.

    Recovery
    I then calculated the additional magicka gain for each race with a recovery passive (Altmer, Breton, Argonian, Khajiit); again the results vary depending on the exact build being used. The following is a theoretical calculation of a generic build that fits the rotations used in the previous section.
    z8ri7j7e5cih.jpgzzcy68qlngt0.jpg
    fpvjjxdq8df1.jpgiidwyzz6u9ch.jpg
    It can be seen that all the results are very close. The high amount of different modifiers make the impact of each modifier very small and in an actual combat situation with additional magicka gain from synergies, potions, Magickasteal, and class abilities it gets even smaller. Nevertheless, I want to give you my personal ranking:

    1. Breton
    Apart from having one of the highest totals, a Breton’s magicka recovery scales very well and isn’t tied to a mechanic which makes it very strong and reliable.

    2. Khajiit
    Similar to a Breton, a Khajiit has magicka recovery as a passive which means it scales well and is also reliable. That being said, the numbers are lower than a Breton’s thus putting Khajiit in second place.

    3. Argonian
    Argonians have a little bit more recovery than Khajiits (in my calculation), however, it is tied to an additional mechanic which forces Argonians to take potions on cooldown to get the maximum effect. This makes their recovery passive, in my opinion, a little bit worse than Breton’s and Khajiit’s; however, the passive is still very reliable.

    4. Altmer
    In order to achieve the numbers in my calculation, Altmers would need to activate their passive on cooldown. Using a class ability every six seconds does not fit well in many rotations and is in my opinion highly unreliable. The effectiveness of this passive is also dependent on class, for example it is better suited to Wardens than Templars due to their increased use of class abilities. In a realistic fight, Altmers have a high chance of having the lowest recovery of the four compared races.

    Healing Power
    In order to determine the healing power of each race, I used ingame testing instead of mathematical calculations, because this is easier for me. All tests were done on a Warden using the Elinhir Private Arena to inflict damage. I did use a representative amount of modifiers that I would usually have in a combat situation (Major Sorcery, Major Courage, Minor Mending, CP), except health based scaling, because it would falsify the results. The magicka-health balance was adjusted to ~17,200 HP such that races with health passives were fairly scaled.
    otea9sii7ayb.jpg
    The results show that Altmers and Dunmers with their offensive stat bonuses will outperform Argonians percent scaling, however this is not by much. Bretons and Khajiits are close behind with their magicka passives. ‘Other’ sums up the stats for all races without additional magicka or health passives and the races with a health bonus that are not included can all get results in between Bretons and ‘Other’ with a corresponding magicka-health balance.

    I therefore conclude that, in general, races with max magicka, spell power, healing, and spell critical are better in terms of healing power and overall stat balance. Races that have a max health bonus can compensate for this with an appropriate build in most situations, however, they can struggle with having too much HP in certain situations or builds.

    Survivability
    Since many races have bonuses for different types of resistances I also calculated their impacts. In this section, however, the interpretation is the most important part.
    dpw9pdy2kfc9.jpg
    The actual damage decrease of all those resistances is between 3.5%-9.5%; in order put those numbers into context I have calculated an example with a standard healer build.
    b2kise5fkbwh.jpg
    With a PvE healer’s normal damage mitigation being between 30-50% an additional 3.5% is a considerable amount. However, the majority of PvE fights are heavily weighted towards a single damage type (like elemental damage) and groups have options for additional mitigation in phases where heavy damage occurs, leading to situations like the second example, reducing the impact of those racial passives. Furthermore, healers are, in most cases more survivable than DDs which further reduces the need for those specific bonuses.

    In general PvE content is strongly balanced towards magical damage types, particularly magic, fire, and shock, which makes the specific resistances towards disease, poison, and frost of Bosmer, Argonian, and Nord less effective. The spell and fire resistances of Breton, Nord, and Dunmer are more useful, especially when countering vampires vulnerability to fire.

    Healing and Max Health
    Some races also have additional healing or max health bonuses, both which generally count towards survivability, however, are in my opinion less impactful and harder to properly calculate. Especially healing has very little impact because it does not influence the effective health. Max health, on the other hand, does count towards the effective health, however, goes into the general magicka-health balance and as such has many other, as well as, better sources.

    Stamina and Movement
    In my opinion, stamina and movement both influence survivability. However, I just want to generally explain them without a mathematical approach. PvE healers generally have access to enough stamina sustain and movement tools which makes a particular race choice not necessary (in my opinion). Kiter or hybrid roles, regularly performed by healers, are however an exception and often require increased stamina sustain and over 30% movement speed. In order to meet those requirements, healers have to run specialized builds and being a race with better movement and sustain as Bosmer or Orc can actually be interesting in those scenarios. I personally would nevertheless not make this a criteria for choosing my race.

    Ultimate
    Nords unique bonus to ultimate generation make it a potentially good choice therefore I constructed this section to determine the actual impact of this passive. My calculation is under ideal circumstances, due to this passive being triggered by incoming damage, the ultimate gain will likely be lower in real encounters.
    509hgxxxpxrj.jpg
    The additional ultimate generation is actually significant, however, it is important to include that the general Warhorn uptime is over 100% in the majority of fights which reduces to the added uptime to Major Force only. I could not get any exact numbers but I estimate that the DPS impact for a raid group is ~0.1%, given that the uptime would only increase by 13% which applies to only one half to one fifth of the total Major Force uptime and Major Force in general only a few percent of the total DPS.
    Additionally, this passive only ticks once every 10s making the scaling with the decisive weapon trait very weak.

    Conclusions
    I have come to a conclusion for every race, including those that don’t have any direct benefit for healers so that non-meta players may see the benefits their race might situationally bring and so that nobody can complain about elitism or favouritism.

    Altmer
    Despite its sustain passive being in my mind too unreliable for a healer, High Elf is still a very solid choice providing the strongest healing while still having additional recovery. The race only lacks in survivability and stamina sustain.

    + 575 Magicka up to every 6 Seconds (~96 M/s | which does not scale )
    + 2000 Max Magicka
    + 258 Spell Power

    Bosmer
    A unique movement speed bonus and very good stamina sustain can make Wood Elf a potentially good choice for a kiter role. However, apart from that, it does very little for a healer.

    + 258 Stamina recovery (129 S/s | scales with %-recovery)
    + 2000 Max Stamina
    + 20% Movement Speed for 3s after Roll Dodge
    + 2310 Poison Resistance

    Dunmer
    Dunmer provides high healing values with an overall good stat balance and survivability which synergizes well with vampirism. It lacks in magicka sustain but is still a very solid choice in my opinion.

    + 1250 Max Magicka and Stamina
    + 600 Max Health
    + 2310 Flame Resistance
    + 258 Spell Power

    Orc
    Like Bosmer, Orc has increased movement and stamina sustain, making it potentially good for a kiter role. Otherwise Orc has no other relevant passives for a healer.

    + 500 Max Stamina and Health
    + 380 Stamina every 4s (~95 S/s | not scaling)
    + 12% Sprint Cost Reduction and 10% Sprint Speed

    Breton
    Having the best magicka sustain, with the lowest overall drain and the highest and most reliable recovery makes Breton a very strong choice. Additionally, the increased spell resistance allows for more offensive builds, further profiting from the max magicka bonus, and synergizes very well with vampirism. The only downside is its lack of stamina sustain and thereby movement.

    + 7% Magicka Cost Reduction
    + 100 Magicka Recovery (50 M/s | scaling with %-recovery)
    + 2000 Max Magicka
    + 2310 Spell Resistance

    Redguard
    A PvE healers magicka output is not caused by many weapon abilities and therefore the cost reduction is rather underwhelming. The excellent stamina sustain can be beneficial but that alone does not make Redguard worth playing ( in my opinion ).

    + 8% Weapon Ability Cost Reduction
    + 2000 Max Stamina
    + 950 Stamina every 5s (~190 S/s | not scaling)

    Imperial
    Both health and stamina are potentially useful stats for a PvE healer, however, they make Imperial very inflexible in terms of stat-balance, making it, in my opinion, one of the worst picks for a healer.

    + 2000 Max Health and Stamina

    Nord
    Since Nords are the only race that can actively increase Group-DPS by using Warhorn more often, it could be argued that they are therefore the best choice for a PvE healer. In my opinion however, this effect is too weak and unreliable to make Nords a definitive best race. They do have a wide spectrum of other useful stats and are therefore still a great choice if magicka sustain is not a problem.

    + 5 Ultimate every 10s ( 0,5 U/s | 1 tick every 10s for Decisive)
    + 1500 Max Stamina
    + 1000 Max Health
    + 3960 Physical and Spell Resistance
    + 2310 Cold Resistance

    Argonian
    While being a little bit behind the top picks in sustain and healing power, everybody's favourite slave race is very well rounded. The additional stamina sustain and survivability make Argonian a very good choice for any kind of kiter or hybrid role, but they also perform well as a regular healer.

    + 3600 Magicka and Stamina every 45s ( 80 M/s | 80 S/s | scales with potion cooldown)
    + 1000 Max Magicka and Health
    + 4% Healing done
    + 2310 Disease Resistance

    Khajiit
    Khajiit is a generally well-balanced race for a PvE healer however it lacks distinct advantages and is generally weaker than some other choices like Breton, Altmer, or Argonian. Spell critical chance is unreliable and scales badly for healing.

    + 75 Stamina and Magicka Recovery (~37 S/s | ~37 M/s | scaling with %-recovery)
    + 750 Max Magicka, Stamina and Health
    + 8% Spell Critical Chance

    As a general conclusion, I have to say that race is secondary for a healer and only becomes important in top tier endgame PvE. Any race can potentially perform flawlessly, as a healers efficiency is mostly not dependant on stats. Playing a more well-suited race, however, makes performing well noticeably easier.

    I have used many tests, calculations, and addons that were created by other players in the creation of this guide therefore a big thank you to all those amazing theory crafters and addon creators!

    Thank you for proof reading and editing Lotte!

    Sources:
    Magicka Recovery vs. Cost Reduction
    Damage Mitigation: Explanation
    Is Decisive Trait Worthwhile? ~Tay's Ultimate Generation Simulator~
    A comprehensive guide on damage dealing in Elder Scrolls Online

    This is awesome - but now ZOS is happening again...waiting to see what happens with Altmer.
  • sneakymitchell
    sneakymitchell
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    ZOS: "We feel like our players should be able to play any race, any way they want. So we've reworked all racial passives to better fit our vision."

    *makes Nord passive that only procs from damage taken*

    basically saying that Nords will only be good for tanking or soloing

    GG, ZOS

    That statement is complete nonsense anyway, as a lot of races are either complete magicka or complete stamina.

    You are always get hit by something either from the AoE or a mob or Dot mechanics that will kill you if you don’t cleanse it.
    NA-Xbox one- Ebonheart Pact- Nord Tank DK
    PC-NA Ebonheart Pact Nord Stam Templar
  • Kulvar
    Kulvar
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    I love that, according to your calculations, Argonian, which racials are focused on making them the best healer, are behind Khajiit, which racials are supposed to make them jack-of-all-trade.
    Coward Argonian scholar of the Ebonheart Pact
  • FakeFox
    FakeFox
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    Kulvar wrote: »
    I love that, according to your calculations, Argonian, which racials are focused on making them the best healer, are behind Khajiit, which racials are supposed to make them jack-of-all-trade.

    They announced that Argonians will be buffed soon. From what is known so far they will probably be stronger then Khajiit in Sustain and possibly healing as well. We will have to see.
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
  • Silver_Strider
    Silver_Strider
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    FakeFox wrote: »
    Kulvar wrote: »
    I love that, according to your calculations, Argonian, which racials are focused on making them the best healer, are behind Khajiit, which racials are supposed to make them jack-of-all-trade.

    They announced that Argonians will be buffed soon. From what is known so far they will probably be stronger then Khajiit in Sustain and possibly healing as well. We will have to see.

    Yay, more shoehorning into Healer only for Argonian.You'll forgive my cynicism but damn if I'm not tired of ZOS giving Argonians the finger whenever it comes to DPS roles.
    Argonian forever
  • FakeFox
    FakeFox
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    I have updated everything to the PTS Patch 4.3.2! It took me a few days as quite a lot has changed, however the results still mostly remain the same. I really appreciate all the positive and constructive feedback I have gotten for this guide so far! :)
    EU/PC (GER) - Healermain since 2014 - 50305 Achievement Points - Youtube (PvE Healing Guides, Builds & Gameplay)
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