Prefered Race For Innate Abilities

Been a while for me, but thought I would come back again to see what is new.

Best way, start a new character to get reaquainted with the game and it's combat system. Basically to relearn the language (gear, stats, etc).

I know that race does not matter for stats, but my question is simply this... which race(s) are prefered by players for their innate abilities (not the stat increases).

Not that it matters for race/class combo, but I am thinking of getting back into the game with a Fury or just Wizard.

So thank you all in advance!

http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Racial_Traditions_(EQ2) has a good listing of the innate and selectable racial abilities.

Right, I am familiar with that page, and the wikia. What I am looking for is what the prefered race for its abilities, i.e. Half-Elf because of the decrease in time it takes to chop wood.

Of course it will be biased, but I am looking for logic and experience with those utilizing the races to their fullest potential without much duplication from items that are out there in the game... What I am not worried about is their "primary stat" as that is just a few point difference, but being able to run 5% faster might be something that people look for, etc.

Personally I love making non-scouts with races that have innate tracking (half elf, halfing, wood elf). Yeah, you can get tracking items off SC but why pay for it? Tracking is just one of those things that comes in so handy sometimes.

I also like the pseudo-CoV that some races get (dark elf, think high elf, freeblood) that teleports you to a group member that's within the same zone. Freebloods also get a lifetap proc on all attacks which while not game-changing damage is still extra dps.

Well, that page doesn't discuss the primary stats, just the special racials like safe fall, tracking, ultravision, etc. If you look at the Iksar race there, you'll find a couple of the reasons I like Iksar - Bind Wound and Underwater Breathing. Some players like the racial tracking ability, or safe fall more. It's all personal preferance.

I'd say that your best bet would be to bring up the pages for Fury and Wizard, then the page for the races (that shows which ones get stuff like tracking, safefall, etc.) and then cross-reference between them to determine which race (in your opinion) best makes up for the skills that the class in question lacks. For example, Furies get Enduring Breath at level 9 and Ferocity of the Eel at level 23, so it would probably be redundant to pick a race that offers that ability (unless you insist upon having that ability from level 1). However, if one of the other traits that a race offers is the one you want, and you just happen to get water breathing along with it, then the water breathing at level one is essentially just a bonus added to what you really wanted, so it's all good.

Hope that helps.

Half Elf, Halfling or Kerran. It's all about the tracking when you are wandering around looking for quest mobs or want to find a rare NPC. Scouts all get tracking as part of the class but in the new EQ2 class structure the last thing you want to be doing is running a Scout around solo.

This.
Tracking is HUGE for questing or farming for transmutables.

Underwater Breathing is useless as a racial as hadden's earring will do the same thing. bind wound could useful on a non-guardian, non-zerker if you dont invest in those fast HP/power recovery AAs in the dragon tab for non-healers.

teleport-to-target racials can be useful but anyone can get a call of the tinkerer and get the same usefulness.

human racial diplomacy can be useful but very situational.

This is all great information!

That depends upon whether the player chooses to do that quest. If they do, then the skill is redundant. If they do not, then the skill is not.

Saying that a given skill is useless just because an item exists that allows that skill, provided that the player chooses to do what it takes to obtain that item, is disingenuous, imho. You wouldn't say featherfall is useless, just because anyone can obtain the Cloak of the Harvester, would you?

For that matter, many skills (including tracking) are replicated by Marketplace items, but that fact doesn't render those skills useless.

Am I saying that the OP should take a race with water breathing? Not really; it is up to them. (I know that after my fifth time doing that HQ, having a toon with water breathing didn't seem like such a bad idea anymore.) Am I saying that the player should at least include it within their decision-making process (even if ultimately they decide against taking a race with it)? Darn right, I am.

Each player's mileage will vary, and having a closed mind doesn't lead to better decision-making, it just leads to fewer options - which isn't necessarily the same thing.

Eh. I just pick the face I like best for that character, the racial benefits never factor in for me, as none of them are all that difficult to replicate, replace, or work around.

There's a similar earring from doing the quests in Chelsith. I choose not to sacrifice stats for earrings (or forget to swap gear most of the time). As I said, it's all personal preference.

Focus on abilities that cannot be obtained in any other "cheap" way.

Tracking (half elfes and ??)
Temporary combat speed buf (faem sarnaks ..)
Stun immnity (barbarian)
Port to friend (24 hours recast) : High and Dark elfes.

Water breating totems are cheap, if you need more out combat health regeneration you can also add totem over food.

of all the racials underwater breathing seems the only one that is in my opinion useless to myself and others. at high level the hadden's earring quest is trivial and doesn't take much effort to equip the earring use it then put it back in your bag. Except cloak of the harvester has a secondary function to imporve your harvesting skill.

call of the tinkerer could be classed as selectively 'useless' however i don't know if it has a shared cooldown with the racial call to abilities. those with the racial call-to ability could see it as useless if it shares a cooldown.

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Tracking: half-elves, wood elves and kerrans
stun immunity (10sec duration): barbarian and ogre
port to friend: high elves, dark elves and freebloods

port to friend can be replicated though if you buy or craft a call of the tinkerer.

Though it might be a wise choice as a summoner to take a race you can port to a friend with as that class you can port friends to yourself as well.

There really isn't anything earthshattering available as a racial trait. Your chosen playstyle will affect which things are most useful.

Stun immunity can be good in certain situations, but I can count on one hand (more like one finger) the times I've needed to use it on my barbarian Templar in her 90 levels of non-group no-where near a raid play. My husband's grouping & in the past raiding berserker used his a lot though. It has only a 5 minute recast time so pretty short for the activated abilities.

I find water breathing convenient to have innate on my iksar, but I certainly don't need it. It'd be a waste on any of my priests or my necromancer and all the rest of my characters can easily use the fishbone earring or totem's of the otter when they need water breathing.

Track is convenient as well but as stated earlier you can buy a scroll of tracking with SC (or just use the ranger mercenary).

Port to friend is less than impressive to be honest with the 12 hour recast time (unless they shortened it drastically since the last time I used it). Call of tinkerer has a much shorter cooldown. This coming from someone with a few highelves, dark elves & freebloods. Though they don't share the same timer so that's good but the racial used to be much more useful, back when call of the tinkerer was only usable by tinkers.

The various featherfall abilities could be useful, but since they don't work while you are on a mount & most people have & use a mount constantly as soon as they get them (usually about lvl 18, earlier if they spend SC or have /claims). Not to mention it's easily replaceable with one of the umpteen cloaks with featherfall or a carpet type mount.

The human racial diplomancy is actually pretty nice to have in certain situations. My first berserker (made long before the current iteration of racial traits) is human and has gotten some use from it.



All in all though, if racial traits were completely removed tomorrow, it wouldn't make a significant impact to anyone's gameplay, so just pick whatever YOU think you will use more often. Remember, you can always pay to change your race hehe.

Eh? Since when has running around on a scout solo been hard?

I haven't tested it but have heard that hiring the ranger merc will grant tracking.

It does. I have a couple of characters that use him.

I would have been happy if they'd left call of the tinkerer to tinkerers, i don't like racials being watered down.
I like questing on my paladin, rarely use a merc on him but i prefer having a healer merc ready to go.

I found it less useful on my paladin to stay human after the dragon aa came out since you can reset the cooldown on call to (home/GH) abilities (10min reduction in call time CD for humans) with the reset ability. so i swapped him to half-elf given they have tracking, the same HP/power bonuses as humans and the same balance of progress/duration tradeskill racial.

With diplomacy it was rarely used but useful though it comes handy in deathfist citadel against one of the princes who likes to fear you by putting it one him and clearing the room of all trash (as one is always in range to call for help), once i used it in skyshrine to sneak past a boss to get a quest objective, which we killed afterwards given the duration wasnt enough to sneak back.

As for featherfall i have found it particularly useful in soluseks eye to drift down the gap down to the walkways. i have enough cloaks with featherfall for all my toons all of them gotten without using SC.