MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Racial passives are supposed to be foundational skills that are useful in PvP and PvE. The fact that Altmer and Bosmer have PvP-only passives is extremely poor game design.

I mostly agree. If they wanted to add a new passive to each race that was PvP focused/only, then that would be fine. PvE players could not take it and not be disadvantaged.

But having two races have PvP only passives while the other 8 have generally applicable ones is, as you said, poor design.

This passive would be super terrific on a stam race.

But it is so so marginal for mag.

Of course some people crow at other's laments, or revel in the challenge of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or just like to be contrarian, but this passive rankles for good reason.

I know that mag characters use stamina to dodge, block, bash, but in PvE your base amount of stam is enough, and in PvP you actively build for it unless you want to become part of the scenery. There are very few mag builds that use stam skills at all, while many stam builds actively use magic skills regularly (nightblade cloak and shadow, sorc surge and dark deal, dknights have multiple, warden too). Having your lesser resource return for using class skills would synergise superbly with lots of stamina builds.

But unfortunately having a passive that returns magicka for a stam build doesn't really suit any of the races. Redguard no do magic, Bosmer just don't have that flavour to them, and Dunmer already got their style nailed down. Maybe Argonian, but that Resourceful potion passive doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

As it is, the passive is like an ashtray on a motorcycle.

This certainly doesn't break Altmer, but it makes them far less attractive as a main. If I was going to start a new character, I would easily choose Dunmer or Breton over Altmer simply because the utility is better for more activities. Altmer is still a fantastic choice for endgame trial mag dps. But for any other activity, I'm looking elsewhere. My Altmer (which was my second ever toon) will probably just be used for weekly score runs and event loot.

I'm over it.

BahometZ wrote: »

This passive would be super terrific on a stam race.

But it is so so marginal for mag.

Of course some people crow at other's laments, or revel in the challenge of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or just like to be contrarian, but this passive rankles for good reason.

I know that mag characters use stamina to dodge, block, bash, but in PvE your base amount of stam is enough, and in PvP you actively build for it unless you want to become part of the scenery. There are very few mag builds that use stam skills at all, while many stam builds actively use magic skills regularly (nightblade cloak and shadow, sorc surge and dark deal, dknights have multiple, warden too). Having your lesser resource return for using class skills would synergise superbly with lots of stamina builds.

But unfortunately having a passive that returns magicka for a stam build doesn't really suit any of the races. Redguard no do magic, Bosmer just don't have that flavour to them, and Dunmer already got their style nailed down. Maybe Argonian, but that Resourceful potion passive doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

As it is, the passive is like an ashtray on a motorcycle.

This certainly doesn't break Altmer, but it makes them far less attractive as a main. If I was going to start a new character, I would easily choose Dunmer or Breton over Altmer simply because the utility is better for more activities. Altmer is still a fantastic choice for endgame trial mag dps. But for any other activity, I'm looking elsewhere. My Altmer (which was my second ever toon) will probably just be used for weekly score runs and event loot.

I'm over it.

All 3 have the same DPS.

Dunmer has a ton of maximum off-stat + is a top DPS in both stamina and magicka so you can easily switch specs

Breton has better survivability and sustain.

Altmer doesn't offer anything over the other two, other than a measly 12.5 effective spell damage over Dunmer (which equates to a ~0.01% DPS gain).

BahometZ wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

(which equates to a ~0.01% DPS gain).

Don't underestimate how much people will chase that

It won't show up in parses because it's too small a difference (variance between each test will be greater than that).

It kind of annoys me how people use "but it's good/useful" is an argument when it could be better as well as sensible.
We could also add machine guns into ESO that work super well and increase DPS tenfold or have a new OP class in the basegame that's called Batman that is a lot of fun to play, really balanced but strong. Sure, we could, but is this really what we want to accept?

For all those that have been asking, this is what the Dev comment on the Altmer changes was:

Previously, High Elves offered bonuses that weren’t distinct enough from other races, so we decided to repurpose their Recovery passive into one that captured the race’s belief in destiny or birth right (in this case, your class!) while tying it to their off-stat resource pool to showcase their knack for efficiency. Now when casting a class ability, they will retain or convert a portion of that cost and restore their lowest resource pool with the power of Alteration Magic. The Elemental Talent passive was also restricting which sorts of damage types and abilities could scale with it, so we converted it to a flat bonus of Spell Damage to allow all damage types, as well as healing, to gain effect.

@Nerouyn The source you are citing even says that the schools are arbitrary. Having the devs use these classifications is valid as they used it to translate their thoughts in a, for us, familiar and understandable way. If they had written an ingame explanation they obviously couldn't have phrased it like that. But I find it much more peculiar that it is not Restoration that regenerates their stamina but Alteration.

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Agreed. No idea why it's even there.

I suppose if I decided to make an Altmer that wasn't a magicka user it might be useful, but, honestly, who does that?

I think if you do that then it returns magic, but I could be wrong.

That's indeed the case and I don't think anyone has a problem with that really. Altmer Stamblades can cloak a lot better than Redguard, Imperial, Orc or Bosmer could.
From a purely mechanical standpoint that passive is really well designed as it carves a niche for Altmer to be picked over Breton in certain situations and it even benefits offmeta builds. But it comes at the cost of lore consistency and tradition, which I don't think are worth sacrificing.

grannas211 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

grannas211 wrote: »

Now that us console plebs have had Wrathstone for a week now, I can safely say for pvp, Spell Recharge is great.

I don’t see it competing with Dunmer’s flat stamina bonus. You would have to be continuously fighting someone for over 24s, without ever reaching full stamina, for the Altmer passive to tie the Dunmer one. I think the average TTK these days is much lower than that.

The old Altmer passive (Magicka sustain) was equally useful in PVP, made much more sense for the race, and was not isolated to that one small segment of the game. Instead Altmer had to become a watered-down Dunmer for unknown reasons.

Negative. Dunmer is a waste and with less damage. You get stam pool by going prismatic enchants and triune.

Damage is virtually identical.

The difference is 125 magicka, or around 12 spell damage.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

argouru wrote: »

I looked over the new racial passives last night and realized that the first one is basically useless to magicka-focused characters, esp. sorcs who have shields and little reason to use stamina at all (at least in my experience). Does anyone else feel the same way about this particular passive?

Little reason to use stamina? Well everyone needs to block and break free from time to time, especially in PVP. The real question is not whether it's useful to magic toons, because of course it is, the question is how it compares to dunmers flat stamina bonus. In other words, unless you are in a perfect PVE trial group with perfect support (that is not 99% of people), then there is just no good reason to chose Altmer over Dunmer. And if you dont care about stam at all, there is just no good reason not to be a Breton, because the sustain is soooooooo good.

It not useless, its very nice in PvP and vMA, however its not very lore friendly, an buff to shield strength would be an better option I think, it increases survival without increasing dps who is bis.

I like the passives they way they are. But, in fairness to other views on the subject, I still wonder why they just didnt make the passive regen the CURRENT lowest pool (Mag or Stam not otherwise full), instead of the lowest total pool...

Seems they missed an opportunity here to make everyone happy.