Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-8435644-20130625212451/@comment-71.185.25.171-20161212014633

For a true jack of all trades build, and by that, i mean, you'll lob fireballs, summon a bound sword, use a shield, use two handed, use a crossbow, sneak, make potions, heal yourself, and all equally, high elf is probably the best option? Just becaue you're going to have difficulty deciding between more hp or more mp on level up, and the high elf's 50 starting mana helps there.

But if you mean, i'm going to use a bow when it suits me, and one of the two melee options, maybe use some utility spells now and then, thats an entirly different situation.

First thing you need to know, the starting skill levels mean nothing, they're entirly useless. Ignore them completly.

What matters is the power, and the racial effect.

Redguards are considered lacking to an extent, they're probably the worst race. The one thing that they do well though, is duel wielding. If you duel wield, you want to power attack as much as possible, since that's where your extra damage is coming from, the redguards 1/day power restores stamina and lets you spam power attacks. If you aren't duel wielding, the value of this drops heavily. Redguards also get 50% poison resistance, which is boarderline useless. Few enemies use poison, and when they do, it's usally pretty weak.

Argonians are another not great option. The health regen is nice, but like the redguard, its a 1/day abbility, which limits its usefullness. Argonians also get 50% disease resistance, which is useless, and underwater breathing, which is also, useless. Disease isn't a big deal when you get it, and curing it is also pretty easy. So that's pointless. As for underwater breathing, thats a rare concept in the game, solutions to it are available too, items, potions. It sounds cool, but it never really comes into play.

Imperial, also, not great. Thier 1/day calm abillity is meh at best. Illusion spells can do the same thing, but it might have some value early game. Late game, you should just be able to fight your enemies. Their other thing, finding extra gold, doesn't find that much extra gold, and extra gold is pointless late game. It would help you get an early start though.

Wood elves are also, largely crap. They 1/day power is to command animals to fight, which is neat when mammoths are around, but is otherwise, pointless. Also, it does nothing if there are no animals around. The other effect is a 50% resistance to disease and poison, both of which, don't matter.

Khajits are actually pretty decent. unlike the other races, their power has unimted uses, but the night vision effect is somewhat questionable in its use. Torches and various spells exist to brighten up the world, and you could also jsut turn the brightness up in the settings. Also, i personally found the night eye effect to not really help much in seeing. They also get the claws abbility, which increases their damage with unarmed attacks. That's relevant if you want to play an unarmed fighter, but that's a questionable goal in the first place. It does howerver help with any brawls you end up in.

Dark elves are also solid choices, even if they aren't great. 50% fire resistance is nice, and helps heavily with dragons, and is relevant to vampires. Their 1/day abbility isn't fantastic, but it's moderatly useful early on, and it stays semi relevant late game.

Nords are a solid 4th place, 50% cold resistance helps a ton, lots of enemies in skyrim use frost attacks, and frost attacks coming with the damage to stamina and the slow effect are super annoying. the 1/day battle cry makes all enemies run away for 30 seconds, which is actually very useful. It can be used as a panic button when you're getting your face kicked in, and you can also track down the running enemies and stab them in the back as they flee. Solid choice all around.

High elves take third place, because they make excelent mages. there 1/day powr restores magicka really fast, which lets them spam spells non stop almost. they also start with 50 more magicka at the start. If you are planning on using spells to any degree, high elves are a good choice, if you aren't, or if you plan on using a small amount of magic, say, muffle when sneaking, or just heals, then they're slightly less good. Honestly, their worth is based entirly off of how much magic you use.

Orcs come in second place. they have no passive resistances, so their main thing is their 1/day berserker rage, which doubles their damage given out, and halves their damage taken in for 60 seconds. This is increadibly useful at all levels, allowing you to go toe to toe with a boss, or just clean an entire area out easily. the only down side is that its a 1/day thing, and the overall effectiveness of those stops being as good at higher levels simpy due to you haveing so many other options. Still, orcs are great choices.

And finally, Bretons. Breton's 1/d abbility grants them 50% spell absorption. SA works differently from resistances, which are jsut a flay % decrease to damage from that source. SA works as a % chance of happening, and when it does, it negates the spell entirly, and gives you back additional Magicka. The gaining of Magicka is secondary, the main effect is the chance to fully negate any magic attack, diseases and poison from spiders are included. Further, with the atronach stone, you can get 100% SA, making you entirly immune to spells.

The other half the bretons is their 25% resistance to magic, which just always reduces all incoming magic attacks by 25% Further, it stacks with normal elemental resistances, so using a shield and ring that grant you 50% fire reisistance, you'll end up blocking 62.5% of the fire damage.