I know that with the supposed racial skills that the Imperial race is rumoured to have, most people are saying that the Imperial is most suited for tanking. But I'm wondering if it's a viable race as a Templar dps too. I know that the Imperial health and stamina bonuses might not be used to maximum potential with a magicka-focused templar DPS, but I'm guessing that with the stat softcaps, I would probably be able to build my character to have enough magicka right?

As you can probably guess, it's my wish to make an Imperial character. But if it's going to make my Templar DPS weak then I'd probably take Breton instead.

DPS doesn't mean "magicka-focused", you can just as easily make a DPS character that focuses on stamina (weapon skills) instead, and use class skills for utility, defence and support.

I'm really getting sick of people looking at a few racial skills and declaring that the race is good for one specific role. You can tank, heal, do damage, or any combination of the three with any race. You don't need to immediately see a bonus to health and say "That's it! My character will be a tank!"

I know, but I'm intending for my Templar to use more magic-based ranged attacks.

Well, racials might not dictate what class a race must be, but racials do make a race more effective at certain roles. I'm questioning if the Imperial can be made to be as effective as the Breton in a magicka-based dps role.

Given the Imperial racial Red Diamond only works with melee attacks, you may want to rethink your preferred build or race

If you give them the same gear, imperial will have a lot more survivability while breton will clearly have a tad more magicka to spend, so it's up to you.

Indeed, the Breton does seem to be more suitable for the build i had in mind. Thanks

Yeah, I will most likely test out both races in the next beta. If the Imperial is available for testing, that is.

Afaik Imperials are disabled in the beta's unless they want to enable it next beta.

but people keep saying racials don't matter, the only racials that don't matter later on are those 15% increase exp with , those ones can be fixed with more time, but these 12% increase in health/stamina for imperials and other races getting +6% or some other regen stat or resistance stuff, can clearly be quite a game changer when deciding the class.

Unless they change the imperial current racials it makes no sense to go a pure caster imperial unless you want to do it for the fun of it.

IMO those who say racials don't matter are those who don't care about class synergy and compatibility. I'm not the hardcoe type who experiments with builds and data, but I know incompatible racial traits when I see them. The health/stamina boost might not be hindering since they are useful to everybody, but the Red Diamond skill that only applies to melee damage is a glaring limitation.

Why not? I'll have a caster with a little bit more survivability. Or a caster who can also block and dodge more often in melee combat.

Elder Scrolls games have had more severe racial bonuses before, and that's never stopped people from creating Khajiit casters or Altmer warriors.

When PvP comes into play people tend to think differently.

If you have no interest in PvP then by all means.

Yes, health and stamina benefits everybody, but what about the Red Diamond racial trait that is more or less wasted on a caster?

Because if you assume you are a pure caster you shouldn't be in melee range for more than the current base stamina allows it.

I never said they were useless, just that they won't help your overall performance.

Again i'm saying the classical caster with staff and whatnot, a sorc with 2h can clearly take benefit of this race.

I have some interest in PvP, where I would actually see quite a bit of utility to my caster with more survivability and dodginess. Or in a nightblade with extra magicka regen, all the better to spam you with Teleport Strike.

People are still stuck in the holy-trinity mindset, or even in the mindset that one can only be caster/melee. I can tell you from my beta experience that some of the best builds do not stay in that box.

You make a good point here. I'm not sure exactly how the stat soft-caps work, but I do see the possibility of using enchants and stuff to boost the 3 stats to levels that will allow an Imperial caster class to have enough survivability to engage in melee combat.

It's not about "I'm a mage I don't need no stinking HP", it's the fact that one of three Imperial racials is useless for a purely ranged character.

So don't use it?

There are a number of racial abilities for each race that may not be useful for your particular build. Playing as an Imperial doesn't mean that you have to take all 4 racial passives in order to be effective. Again, I think people are getting stuck in the mindset of other MMOs. Traditional classes and builds are not going to win the day in ESO. We've already heard straight from the developers that DKs with destruction staves are becoming one of the favorite odd builds to work with. No reason to think it will be the last weird combination that works out.

Except you could choose a race where all three of your racials are useful for your build. Which means that at "endgame", when everything in your "completed" build is unlocked, you will have one more passive advantage over someone who ran the same build but used a race where one passive does nothing.

Your talk about Destruction staves on DKs is apples and oranges. Not the same thing. There is nothing inherently incompatible between DKs and Destructive staves, in fact they're somewhat complementary as the DK lacks long-ranged class skills; so if a DK wants to focus on magical DPS then a Destruction staff is a smart choice.

It is the same thing. It's about where you choose to place skill points.

By using all your racial abilities, you're going to be sacrificing skill points that could be spent elsewhere. That's a given. So when you pick a race, you may want to use those racial abilities to complement your playstyle, or you may find that there are other skill lines that are much better for you.

Your argument would be valid if we assume skill points are restricted enough that most builds won't be able to choose all the skills that benefit that build. That assumption however is false: we in fact have an excess of skill points that can completely fulfill even the most elaborate of builds.

It's true that any race can play any class and any role. Nobody has ever said you can't nor has anyone ever said that certain races have to be set roles.

However to say a Redguard would make a better DPS Sorceror than a Breton or Altmer would be misleading. Whilst it's true racials aren't needed, you are limiting potential by taking a race which doesn't benefit your choices.

As you could take just skills that use stamina, you wouldn't be as effective as someone who takes magicka and stamina. You can do whatever you want, how effective it will be is the question people are asking.

There will be ~300 skill points apparently, that number will generally allow you to have far more abilities and passives than you will use given how the mechanics work. The limiting factor is only somewhat of an issue at the lower levels and even then many racials will in fact be simply more impressive than other passives as well as you being limited in level requirements for passives in general.

I'm not quite sure where people are getting the 300 skill points number. And I know we'll have plenty of points to allocate. But try and remember that most players are not going to find every skyshard and do every quest. I believe that there will be plenty of builds where, even with every skill point in the game, people will be leaving some passive skills alone.

This pretty much sums up the whole thing. While we all wish to play the race we want, be it for aethestic or lore reasons, not all racials are "universal". This means that not all are useful to everybody. Take for example the Argonian's Amphibious racial passive. It grants a boost to swim speed and effectiveness of potions. This is a very specific skill: it requires the character to be in the water or use potions.

Now contrast this to the Nord, for example. its racials give bonuses to armor, cold resistance, max health, and health regeneration. They benefit any class at any time, since they don't restrict you to any specific action or criteria.

So from a PVE perspective, maybe racials don't really matter since you can pretty much kill mobs your level. But what about PVP?