Balancing the races

[An Innocent Coconut]

It really surprises me that even after all these years, the races are still so horribly unbalanced.

Shalores and Ogre are the best picks for pretty much every class and every situation, Halflings can get the job done in certain situations, Thalores a bit less and Cornacs are very situational (though they are better than they used to be). (I forgot Yeeks who are good for the negative XP penalty and mindpower based classes and Doomelves are in the same category as Halfling, maybe slightly higher. That teleport is so strong)

How come Dwarves, Skeletons, Ghouls and Higher are still as awful as they were several years ago? What could be done to make them at the very least viable?

[minmay]

Shalores and Ogre are the best picks for pretty much every class and every situation

this is doomelf erasure

dwarf is better than thalore now until level 24, yeek is better than thalore in general IMO

undead are bad because infusions are broken, if you make infusions sane then they'll be fine



(i'd also argue that the race balance in tome isn't nearly as offensive as the class balance)

[An Innocent Coconut]

All classes are viable for Nightmare, and most are still viable on Insane.

Madness is irrelevant when talking about balance to be honest.

The 6.5% allres is what saves Thalore honestly. Coupled with Thick Skin, it's very good. Then again, the race itself is trash compared to the uberstrong Shalore/Ogre category.

Undeads don't have infusion, but their race skills should be able to at least makeup for the lack of it. Wich is definitely not the case for Ghouls (the amount of winning ghouls, even on Nightmare, is ridiculously low), and skeletons have 40% xp penalty, as well as no infusion. The Bone Shield and second life aren't nearly strong enough to compensate.

[minmay]

All classes are viable for Nightmare, and most are still viable on Insane.

all classes and all races are viable on insane, what's your point?

the only good thing thalore has is nature's pride, 5 generics for 6.5% resist all is a bad investment except on classes that have no good generics (like alchemist) and maybe on things like psyshot. on most classes you don't want to 5/5 thick skin as soon as possible and guardian of the wood is barely 1/3 as good as thick skin.
yeek levels WAY faster, gets extra zones, and wayist is nearly as good as nature's pride while becoming available significantly earlier because of the faster leveling.

[An Innocent Coconut]

So, in your opinion, all the races are balanced properly? There's no way dwarves or undeads could be made less shitty?

[Zeyphor]

So, in your opinion, all the races are balanced properly? There's no way dwarves or undeads could be made less shitty?

dwarves are actually pretty good
stoneskin gives a 15% chance to avoid all melee dmg taken from an attack, for every attack, and the 40 armor that it gives while active at tlvl 5 is not something to laugh at

also, +50 to all saves is actually pretty good; just having 70 to all saves is going to save you from a LOT of debuffs(or shorten them), even in insane high peak, and you can easily get 70 to all saves with power is money, though mental and spell save matter more unless you get a ton of physical save elsewhere

most rares, uniques, and randbosses even in high peak don't even have 70 mindpower or spellpower when they're a mindpower or spellpower class; usually its just 60something or less
stone walking is still a life saver if used properly


you severely underestimate halflings; now only do they get indomitable, but they also get DUCK'N'DODGE, which is gonna cause them to usually have 50% evasion while in combat, and the first talent is pretty good too
50% evasion is not something to laugh at, and it lasts for 4 turns at tlvl 5

cornac is actually one of the best races now, depending on your class

higher still sucks though

[Einzbern]

While not a buff directly to undead, AFAIK 1.6 includes a pretty big inscription revamp.

[Stenag]

So, in your opinion, all the races are balanced properly?

Where did you read that ?

[Micbran]

this

all classes and all races are viable on insane, what's your point?

is not equal to this

So, in your opinion, all the races are balanced properly?

viability does not mean balanced. And its also definitely not what minmay said since its obvious ghoul is trash tier compared to ogre.
Here is the new official tier list:

BIG B O Y E tier: Ogre
Godnac tier: Cornac
Elitist elf tier: Shalore Doomelf
Tree hugger tier: Thalore
Manlet tier: Halfling Yeek Dwarf
Not that high tier: Higher
Spooky tier: Ghoul skelly

[Kruzifixxion]

All the races are pretty evenly balanced

Doomelf - it's the best race for any class

Cornac, Halfling, Shalore - these races are all equally balanced

Yeek, Thalore, Dwarf, Ghoul, Skeleton, Ogre to an extent, are all equally balanced for being challenge races

[Coldbringer]

I've had good luck with Higher. The regeneration racial you get early is very helpful throughout the game and scales. Increased vision range is very helpful for ranged classes such as Archer and Archmage and Temporal Warden etc, seeing dangerous enemies from farther away before they can target you means you'll almost always get the jump on them. And blindness immunity always helps. 15% damage boost racial is no small thing, although not as good as the Orcs all-damage boost racial. Free casting as the final racial ability can be useful for most classes too.

They could use a little buffing, bring the numbers on some of those up a little.

Skeleton, if they made the Heal/Shield instant and or gave them an extra rune slot for free, I think that would be enough. Would be fun to play a class that makes use of runes since there are a bunch of cool ones I never really use due to infusions being so strong and useful. Freezing, acid and lightning come to mind. I save the really high damage ones on mule characters hoping for the day.

Halflings are great with the right class. Same for Dwarves & Cornacs & Whitehooves. Thalore could use a small buff, same for Doomelf. I don't play Yeeks, too gimmicky and i hate getting one-shotted due to low health.

Ghouls are the worst off. Unless you use Tarasca armor the speed debuff is painful. Retch and Leap are decent abilities. Ghoul bite is a decent idea but could use a rework.

Ogres and Shalore are still the master races, even after the nerfs. Rather than further nerfing I'd prefer the other races get buffed a bit to be somewhat competitive with them. Orcs and Yetis aren't too far off, they have powerful & useful racials.

Will be interesting to see how the new 2 races stack up with the coming expansion.

[blakemw]

the only good thing thalore has is nature's pride, 5 generics for 6.5% resist all is a bad investment except on classes that have no good generics (like alchemist) and maybe on things like psyshot.

uh, that 6.5% resist all also comes with 75% disease immunity and an extra 10% blight resist. If you want to do Dark Crypt then Thalore is a great choice because of the utter ease with which you can have 100% disease immunity.

Also the Thalore treants are great for 1pt because they are instant cast and are useful for extracting yourself from a number of sticky situations, essentially body-blocking enemies with a tree.

Now I'm fully aware some classes are more amenable to power-gaming than others, like some races give easy resists/immunities (Ghoul is the best example), but these benefits are totally replicable with equipment. Other races have talents that are totally not replicable with equipment, like Ogrewield or Timeless.

But for peasants who play without Item Vault and on shitty equipment difficulty levels the races that free you up from needing good equipment can actually be pretty good.

~

Now Ghouls are shit. I actually have a Nightmare Ghoul winner - not only winner, even rescued Melinda which frankly often feels harder than High Peak, kept that paladin alive too. But that was with an Archer which is special because slings and bows have a 125% attack speed meaning no double moves when attacking and Slinger gets Rapid Shot which gives lots of free movement and attack speed further exterminating double moves (because if you get rid of double moves for moving and attacking, well, that's all Archers do). Double moves are not something you can live with unless the class has absurdly strong passive defenses which makes the Ghoul only usable (and can actually be quite good) for a very few classes that can prevent or endure double moves. Being so restricted in class choices makes it hard to be a thematic Ghoul unless you're usual idea of a Ghoul's style is Archer or Sun Paladin.

[btonassse]

I don't get this mantra that Ogre/Shalore are so much better than the rest of the races. I have a few Insane/RL wins under my sleeve and the easiest of those were with Dwarven characters. So much hp, damage mitigation and an amazing bonus to saves that allows them to often resist debuffs even in High Peak. What's not to love?

Shalore is honestly overrated. Yes, Timeless is probably the best ability in the game, but when do you get it? At lvl 24? That's almost halfway into the game. Most characters die before that.

[Arcvasti]

Grace of the Eternals is also pretty good. One point in that is about as good as 3-4 points in Blinding Speed. Magic of the Eternals is an almost strictly better version of Lethality[More crit chance, but takes generic points], which is also nice. So Shalore do have more then Timeless going for them.

[Cathbald]

I'll post my tier list as well, with reasoning, since this thread is all the rage now.

Tier A : Ogre, Doomelf, Cornac
Ogre, 2h in one hand is just excellent and make them the top or second best race on every melee. The infusion boost is also great and make Ogre a solid choice on every class.

Doomelf tp is a guaranteed escape and the rest of the tree is really solid as well.

Cornac is a bit less universal than the 2 other because some races just don't have enough to unlock. They're still a great early game help on those class however and huge on all other.

Tier B : Halfling, Shalore
Halfling are often overlooked but they're amazing. 50% evasion fucks up melee/archer mobs, militant mind is great on hybrid and still decent on others, stun/pin clear + free action is huge for everyone even those who have 100% stun res. They also have good life rating!

Shalore timeless is nice but you're gonna have to wait 25 levels or so before it does something, and have low life until and the other racials are also more of a late game thing. A few classes do have extreme synergy and have Shalore as top pick but not that much.

Tier C : Yeek, Thalore, Dwarf
Yeek low HP isn't much of a problem because their higher level mostly make up for it. They have summons and they have them early thanks to the exp boost. Dominant will is a life saver against summoner and some strong elite (some horrors, orc mage-hunter...). They get a lot of criticism but they're middle in power imo. Don't underestimate summons!

Thalore has slightly better summons but less good racials overall and huge exp penalty which can be a pain. Still, them and Yeek are about the power we should expect for races imo

Dwarf is only here because they're closer to Thalore than Higher and i don't want to make a tier just for them. They're just worse halflings. Second racial is good, they have good life and extra dungeons/shops, but that's it.

Tier D : Higher
1st racial is probably the worst first active racial, even though the heal mod boost made it better. 3rd only benefits mages and not that well. 4 would be great if it worked on all the things it doesn't work with right now. As it stands it's rarely very useful.

Tier E : Ghoul Skeleton
Undead lose infusion and that hurts them enough to guarantee they're the worst races (will change in 1.6 probably). They have great racials and built in immunity/bonuses but it just doesn't make up for it