I am curious what other enchanters out there think which race is best? Humans have an affinity for charms/charisma but gnomes have really good racial traits overall. I'm normally an elf guy but these racial traits are enough to make me change my views. What do you guys think?
This has been discussed in a number of threads already, you can find some in the enchanter subforum: https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/18/the-enchanter
But obviously, dwarf enchanters are the best, after all, who can say no to more hitpoints in a dangerous world? (JK...we don't know yet which races will be best ultimately)
Mine will be Dark Myr so I have access to their ridiculously overpowered racial bonuses (+10٪ crafting ability when making seafood). All kissing aside, it's probably a mix of 'too early to tell' and 'it depends on your playstyle '. I'm not interested in picking race based on the meta and instead pick what sounds interesting.
If you like Elves I would highly suggest the Ashen Elf. I think (my non-factual based opinion) is that the Ashen Elves will make some of the best INT casters. (This opinion is based on current passives as we know them).
My opinion is bsed on the current fact that they will be able to add both INT and WIS to their spell ratings as well as the best passive IMO of resisting spell interruption/counterspells. Resisting spell interruption from attacks was king in EQ (ESPECIALLY as an ENC... you needed that rune skin up just to ensure you could get your spell off...) - (If I remember right, it was based on the concentration skill, and Ogres resisted interruption from frontal attacks (unless the attacks were enough to push you.. which would then check against the concentration skill to potentially continue casting again).
I definintely wouldn't go gnome or human JUST for the current passives if you're typically an Elf person. Any passive that can be circumvented by simply having better gear (extra mana or higher charisma) gets removed as a factor when being compared to passive abilities that can't be duplicated by buffs or improved with gear/time/skill. If I were to go gnome, it would be for the cosmetic or RP and if I were to go human it would be to play Paladin (because I can't stand playing dwarves and the myr passives are HORRIBLE (unless you really want to pickpocket NPCs with the cunning disposition)- unless their skill is always 100% better than everyone elses (which is doubtful), I'll take the few hours of swimming around to improve my swim skill... and then still resist spell interruption)
IMO, the only (currently known) racial passives that are worth playing a race for include:
Archai: Elemental Attunement (increase elemental efficacy
Dwarves: Fortitude (extra HP that scales can be helpful as a tank)
Elves: Increased ALL skills/abilities that use Agility, AND extra attack rating from Dexterity OR resist interruption and extra spell rating from Wisom...
Halfling: Depending on how consumables work The Fire of Youth may be really good, or halflings will otherwise have useless passives (but fun to RP... like gnomes)
Humans: Maybe 2% spell haste will be meaningful, maybe the increase to charisma effects will be significant (doubtful though)
Ogre: Extra attack from Str, resistance to stun effects, advantage against blood thirsty (Huge for tanks)
Skar: (+5% "MAXIMUM" health... so when stats are capped, gear is BIS, and those buffs that increase flat HP get tossed on, these guys will be HP monsters... followed closely by the Dwarves depending on how their soft cap stats work). Advantage against the predatory disposition is nice as a tank too. (Decreases damage they take (and increases dmg dealt) for enemies designed for being the high physical dmg (hunter/rogue) type of NPCs.)
So to come full circle, if you like elf, I'd recommend staying elf for an ENC. This has been my opinion and reasoning. --shrug--
Darch said:I definintely wouldn't go gnome or human JUST for the current passives if you're typically an Elf person. Any passive that can be circumvented by simply having better gear (extra mana or higher charisma) gets removed as a factor when being compared to passive abilities that can't be duplicated by buffs or improved with gear/time/skill.
I'm not sure why you think that the Gnome passive can just be circumvented by gear. It's bonus Mana per Point of Intellect. This means that even with improved gear you still gain added bonus. Gnomes will always have a higher mana pool than other Races with equal gear.
You seem to understand this when it comes to Dwarves and the bonus HP per point of Stamina and thought that was still relevant...
Now unless you are trying to make the arguement that Mana costs are going to be unbalanced and not meaningful to enchanters. That could be debated I guess. We do know that VR is making efforts to make it meaningful though, with recent addition of a mana Maintainence cost to Mezmerize to make keeping it up on multiple targets a challenge with your Mana pool. Since Enchanters are not being balanced as Damage dealers, Mana Pool management is one of the major challenges of the class, so we can guess that VR will be tweaking Mana Costs and Mana Pools on Enchanters especially closely even more so than most other classes. As such the Gnome passive Mana bonus will remain a very relevant choice for the class.
Darch said:If you like Elves I would highly suggest the Ashen Elf. I think (my non-factual based opinion) is that the Ashen Elves will make some of the best INT casters. (This opinion is based on current passives as we know them).
Of course your suggestion that if the OP has always enjoyed playing Elves that choosing an Ashen Elf would still be a good choice is valid. The Interruption and Counterspell protection is likely to be most relevant to Enchanters who are trying to Re-Mez enemies who are poking weapons at them. Having a huge mana Pool of a Gnome doesn't help if you end up dead because your Mezmerize got inturrupted 3 times in a row.
Based on the current Racial info we have... My personal choice for Enchanter would either be Ashen Elf or Gnome. The Human Charisma Boost might be a factor, but as of yet we don't really know what kind of boost this will actually be, and so until we know for certain how this Passive will effect the specific Enchanter spells we don't know if this will be important enough to make Human a priority choice.
At the risk of being very obvious - much depends on your goals in the game. If you want to be an important part of a guild doing the most difficult content (note I do not say raid guild - raids may not be nearly as important in Pantheon as in other MMOs) then you probably do want to be the best race rather than the race you enjoy looking at most. But if your goal is to be a good player and contribute well to groups and explore and enjoy Terminus - the second or third or fourth best race for a min-maxer may be a better choice if you enjoy playing it more. The difference between best race and perfectly good race is highly unlikely to be decisive unless VR screws up seriously.
Good points @GoofyWarrior. I misspoke by stating that extra mana can be "circumvented" by gear (I should've said supplemented), but I do feel that it "likely" won't be as important to an endgame ENC as being able to continue casting a spell after being hit during an unexpected charm or mez break or the almost certain to happen AoE damage. And unless their spells scale off of their mana pool size, if an extra 10% mana is going to make a difference then thats is likely an amount that could be improved with gear. In my experience (from EQ) raw extra mana and hp were vastly superior to HP/mana from the stat increase. I dont think the extra mana from INT (or extra HP from STA for Dwarves) will be as effective as the 5% increase to maximum HP like the Skar, or the extra spell/atk rating from other races... (because extra skill atk and spell ratings scale) and I think extra mana from INT is even less effective than the HP from STA because of the way mana typically works; which is if your lowest mana cost spell costs 450 mana to cast, having 300 extra mana is effectively worthless... whereas having even 100 extra HP can be the difference between living and dying some times. Again, this is if their abilities don't scale off of their mana pool, which is completely possible too. Those are my personal opinons of course and I completely see where you are coming from.
I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered either reading or watching a VOD that eluded to racials not staying as they are currently, or completely staying as they are currently. May have even been Joppa bean dropping in a video last year or two years ago (it starts to blend together >_<). That doesn't mean a spirited discussion won't inspire the devs with ideas, though :)