Race Skills and Hybrid Classes

Blackbird71 · May 2023

Just a question: If you're planning to make a hybrid character (for example putting all points into Stamina but slotting 1-2 Magicka skills) would it be useful at all (not necessarily "optimal") to play a race with Magicka-focused passives (Breton, for example) to bolster the use of Magicka skills? Or is this still considered wasteful?

LunaFlora · May 2023

depends on the cost of the Magicka abilities and how often you use them compared to your Stamina abilities.

breton is useful because of extra Magicka recovery, however my bosmer doesn't run out of magicka super fast on a stamina build with a few Magicka abilities

Aelorin · May 2023

It all depends on gear, skills used, food and you race too.

For example I have a magicka Dunmer necromancer.

I use magicka and stamina skills.

However, I did found out that, when wearin medium armor (which gives stamina skill reduction cost) i can sustain silver shards as a spammable with bewitched sugar skulls as food. I can't sustain it when wearing mostly light armor.

Also: for producing maximum damage it does not matter if you go magicka or stamina, since the game takes the highest of your weapon or spell power to calculate damage.

If you are on PC: the test server is up: try your build with a high level template character and see how it goes :-)

fred4 · May 2023

Breton is not likely an at all useful race for a build that only uses 1-2 magicka skills. Possible exceptions that come to mind:

One of those skills is a spammable, perhaps a magicka AOE spammable.
You might use such a spammable to activate Bahsei or the Torc of Tonal Constancy on a stamina build at will. That said, you have a vested interest in low mag regen in that case, so that may not even be great.
Your 1-2 skills are Cloak and Shadow Image in PvP.
You're using a magicka heal that you sometimes want to spam, again mostly in PvP.

The problems with Breton are:

The max magicka bonus is wasted on a stamina build. A stamina bonus would be better as it ups your damage. If you want somewhat high magicka in the 15K to 20K range, then Hakeijo enchants and/or food will get you there with less compromise instead.
The magicka cost reduction bonus is only useful at times when you spam something like Cloak, a heal or a spammable.

You picked the one race as an example that is well and truly a magicka race or, at best, a magicka-leaning hybrid race. Breton. Other traditional magicka races, high elf for example, have better hybrid passives, even if they share the max magicka one.

phaneub17_ESO · May 2023

My hybrid characters are Imperial Templar and Sorcerer, Nord Dragon Knight and Warden, and Orc Nightblade and Necromancer; they are high stamina races while putting all my points into magicka. It's easier to restore magicka with a heavy attack lightning staff than it is with melee weapons. To recover stamina comes from abilities like Templar uses Repentance and Restoring Focus, Necromancer has Mystic Siphon and Mortal Coil, Nightblade has Incapacitating Strike and Leeching Strikes, and Sorcerer has Regenerative Wards and Dark Deal, Warden uses Bull Netch and Enchanted Growth, and Dragon Knight has Green Dragon Blood.

Red CP I focus on recovery there's one that gives 150 tri-recovery when affected by negative effects, 90 constant tri-recovery, 1500 health recovery based on your ultimate, and 300 restore on kill this last one depends on the character. Because of the 1500 health recovery, I don't use my ultimate at all so its mostly about slotting the best passives. Dawnbreaker for more weapon/spell damage, Meteor for 2% max magicka and recovery, Barrier for 10% magicka recovery, or Werewolf for 15% stamina recovery. Class specific ultimate like Warden Bear for 12% stamina and magicka recovery, Sorcerer Storm Atronach for 20% health and stamina recovery, Nightblade Incapacitating Strike for 100 stamina and magicka restore, Templar Radial Sweep for 10% critical damage, and Necromancer Bone Goliath for 666 stamina and magicka restore or Colossus for 8% critical strike.

I go with melee weapons and mostly stamina abilities in the front bar, while using a staff and mostly magicka abilities in the back bar. The key is to swap often, not relying solely on one side more than the other, if I get drained on one resource I move onto the other bar. Infused with Prismatic restore is up to you if you need that extra boost, but not necessary.

MindOfTheSwarm · May 2023

Best race in game right now is in my opinion Imperial. The extra health and Stam is useful for both Stam and Mag but it’s the Red Diamond passive that makes Imperial no joke for either spec.

Syiccal · May 2023

Dark elf

StarOfElyon · May 2023

Blackbird71 wrote: »

Just a question: If you're planning to make a hybrid character (for example putting all points into Stamina but slotting 1-2 Magicka skills) would it be useful at all (not necessarily "optimal") to play a race with Magicka-focused passives (Breton, for example) to bolster the use of Magicka skills? Or is this still considered wasteful?

My Breton is a closer to a stam-plar (using sword and shield skills). I can also main tank with the character in pve. I used completely roleplay based reasoning when making the character. If Breton is what you want, just do it. Just means you don't have to build for mag sustain much.

MudcrabAttack · May 2023

When playing wood elf I’ll always stack the main stamina resource for everything out of principle, even a Lightning heavy attack build using magic-based skills. Most of the time I’m the only Stamina player in groups, the rest are either on magic dk or heavy attack magic sorc. I just like to have that extra few percent output from the 2k stamina

Generally if you play a resource regen race on a meta type of setup, or especially a setup with hybrid skills, you’ll always have plenty of your main resource, far more than than you would ever need. When I wear coral riptide (low stamina = more damage) I have to block cast a lot of skills to keep stamina below 50%.

On the next character I’m planning, the wood elf Arcanist, holding down block while casting back bar magic skills will be a pretty standard practice since I’m still equipping coral riptide, and the stamina regen is way beyond what I’m needing on the PTS. Even with max health/max stamina food I see my stamina bar slowly filling back up when casting pragmatic Fatecarver- which has a damage shield. Light attacks don’t do anything with Velothi Amulet, and blocking damage will generate ultimate. So I’m building a block-based DPS build with bracing anchor for the tank-like block mitigation, and I’m offsetting the slowdown with celerity and wood elf speed. It’s like the antithesis of a heavy attack build, holding right mouse button while cycling through skills instead of the left mouse, and it’s very VERY tanky.

Weckless · May 2023

Dark elf supremacy

Zodiarkslayer · May 2023

I think all races can do a hybrid build. I wouldn't overthink it, if you are only in it for some fun.

The key is to roughly measure your ressource drain and then build to get that level of sustain, that you need.
That means thinking a bit about your rotation, but that comes with the game, anyways.

All those holiday/festival foods and drinks help a lot. Jewels and Coins and such...

ADarklore · May 2023

With Arcanist, due to how some skills now cost is dependent on max attribute and one damage skill based on lowest attribute, it's definitely designed to be a hybrid.

Personally, my Arcanist will be a High Elf while I spec all stamina and wear five light and two medium, with prismatic and stamina glyphs on armor, Oakensoul ring and being able to swap between Lightning staff or DW daggers, depending on my mood- do I want to play range or melee today. I've found that most defensive abilities cost magicka, so against world bosses, being able to regen those with staff heavy attacks are most important as the stamina on damage skills tends to regen quickly just from recovery. In open world, I like DW because of squid arm (Cephaliarch's Flail).

On PTS I tried going all magicka, and found resource management was horrible. The only abilities that used stamina was Fulminating Rune and Ceph's Flail... everything else just burned through magicka. I was forced to constantly heavy attack to regen magicka, which took away from the 'intended playstyle' of the Arcanist. Then I tried going the above noted hybrid approach, and it works perfectly IMO.

El_Borracho · May 2023

Quick answer, I would avoid the regen races (Breton, Redguard) as the regen passives are nowhere near what they once were. Focus either on a damage race or a resistance race instead. Or go full hybrid with Dark Elf or Khajiit.

But so much more goes into this. Food and glyphs are your primary options. PVP vs. PVE are big questions. In PVP, you can more easily run a melee/magicka weapon setup on front and back bars to help with sustain and there is more variability with the mundus stones. In PVE, I encountered this issue primarily with a Mag DK build and ended up running daggers on the front bar to sustain the whip with a inferno back bar for my DOTs.

LittlePinkDot · May 2023

Blackbird71 wrote: »

Just a question: If you're planning to make a hybrid character (for example putting all points into Stamina but slotting 1-2 Magicka skills) would it be useful at all (not necessarily "optimal") to play a race with Magicka-focused passives (Breton, for example) to bolster the use of Magicka skills? Or is this still considered wasteful?

I think imperial might be the best for hybrids. They have an innate 10% cost reduction for all skills.
There's also sets you can use to reduce costs.

MindOfTheSwarm · June 2023

Where are all the mixed races? I am pretty sure half elves exist within the lore.