Anyone playing Imperial with your class on launch?

So this last beta, I tried out the Imperial race.

I was curious how many guildies are going to play Imperial on launch day; and if so, what class?

To me, the obvious choice is a tanking class like DragonKnight.  (However, I just read the post about the AOE tanking Nightblade).

How many of you are playing Imperial on launch, and what class? 

Imperial templar o/

having an imperial dragonknight for tanking, and then a breton templar as my healer.   one day, one day I may get around to my dunmer sorceress, but for now, just really going to focus on the tank/healer.

Imperial dragonknight will be one of my earliest characters.  I am going to be using her for some crafting so she may level up slower than my Khajiit nightblade will.   I played a Khajiit nightblade up to VR1 in PTS and instead of having her be in AD, it should be fun to play the khajiit in EP.

I am also creating two other characters, one in each alliance on the first day.  Looks like I'll be taking my time leveling up :)

 I do not like the imperial as best for tanking.  I think orc for example is better.  as a tank first and formost you want combat regen. ( as with all classes  magicka REGEN. stamina REGEN)  having  9-12% to max is good and all that. but that comes secondary to regen acrossed the whole board.

I disagree somewhat Roninhood.  When it comes to tanking, it's much more important to have high EHP (effective hit points) and overall damage mitigation.  A single group healer will heal you for far, far more than your own combat health regen... so it's more about being able to take big hits and survive long enough for the next few heals.  Casters and melee DPS/ranged DPS need magicka and/or stamina regen as a top priority, but it's different with health since you can be healed in a group.  I would prioritize max health, armor, spell resistance, and healing received when looking at the ideal racial passives for a tank.  The 4 ideal tanking races it seems are Imperial, Argonian, Nord, and Orc.  Each have their own flavor and pros/cons...  I will admit that combat health regen is very useful for soloing; however, also be advised that health regen tends to hit the softcap pretty fast which means you're getting diminishing returns for it pretty quickly (i.e. one good piece of gear with +health regen and you're often soft capped).  Personally, I prefer the Imperial as the tank of choice due to their +12% bonuses to max health and stamina (compared to +6% to each for Orc).  After that, I think it's a toss-up between Argonians (+ healing received passive) and Nords (+Armor passive) while both have lower max health buffs (+3%) with some resistance.  The sprint bonus for Orcs sounds tempting, but IHO in dungeons and AvA you'll find yourself rarely sprinting in a battle since it drains stamina and you can't use any abilities while sprinting.  As a DK in AvA I found myself sneaking much more often, and would only sprint occasionally when dismounted and transiting between areas.

@ Radgasken  I guess we will agree we both disagree then.

imperial 50th 2240 health.    0 regen life every 2 seconds.

orc        50th 2120 health. 25-35 hippoints tick every 2 seconds

I find far more helpful. Health regen doesn't hit a softcap easy at all.

longterm fights favor the orc by far in this regard. Also regardless of self heals. group heals  or otherwise.

the above goes the same with redguard and the stamina regen and maxing. any fight over 10 seconds  the redguard is superior in blocking then imperial race.

 I also like Argonians for the 6% to all heals and the 20% to potions. both of these are never reached in a softcap and are tricky important.

 Oh and damage midigation favors the Orc as well. under 50th level the orc well have many more level ranks and therefore more passives to armor an a higher damage midigation. at maxed armor it is the same for all races.

lol this thread got interesting :) now I think both races are fine for tanking it all depends on what kind of tank you are building,  a Templar tank witch I have played can play it out with less health but massive amounts of mana to protect and self heal,  you can even have some sorc tank that go in with light armor and still take massive hit and survive....  think its the beauty of this game how they manage to build it around the fact that you can play in so many various ways that no one build, race is the best.....  its all how you build up your own toon that makes it efficient and rocking your style 

I think the stamina regen will be the most important for dodging and blocking. Second will be magicka for attacks. I would want to maximize the regen. You are going to need more stamina, the regen can be done with armor enchantments AND with a higher max, your per tick will be higher. That gives a case for making the imperial better. If you have 1000 stamina as an orc, an imperial would have 1120. So 10 percent regen is 100 for regulars, 112 for imperials. after 3 ticks Orc regained 300, imp gained 336, it will be enough for an extra block every 5 or 6 ticks I think

I really appreciate reading all the different ideas about which race will make the best class.   In early beta's, I loved the Orc DragonKnight.  Can't explain it.  Something just clicked.   This last beta, I tried playing an Imperial DK, and it wasn't the same.  It felt difficult.

Of course, by the time any of us get a toon to 50, things will have changed a few times. Maybe Imperial will outshine the Orcs.  Who knows.

It just seems like Imperial should be an 'uber' race, since it is a race limited to those who pre-order.  (You would expect it to outshine the other races, right?).  But somehow, I think i'll stick with Orc for now or not.  I'm still indecisive.  Maybe :).

my alt will be imperial dragonknight.

@Garyc I agree with the outlook on imperials being lackluster... human look and zero different or special. Everyone can wear the imperial armor so that is not even in the list. I know they can not make anything "better" then the other races but come on, for the money we paid there should be some unique and great looks at least that are all imperial. Cybernetic arm,  green huge hulk leg... idk...

You are going to need more stamina, the regen can be done with armor enchantments AND with a higher max, your per tick will be higher.

I suspect we'll go through a long phase sometime in the first year where Stamina Regen enchantments will be the standard endgame armor build.  The Redguard is underestimated by tank players right now.

Roninhood, your numbers for health regen are not accurate.  For example, my 39 Nord DK only has one point in the health regen passive (so +5%) and has no gear in +health regen and he is softcapped at +39hp per tick.  Whether you have the passive or not, you still get natural regen that increases based on your level.  The passive merely augments that natural regen.  Natural level up regen seems to be +14 mp, +14 stam, and +8hp per tick for every 10 levels (rough estimates), but adding to your max amount tends to boost it as well.

So at level 50 you're talking about +50hp per tick for an Imperial versus +58 per tick for a race with +15% regen by my estimates.  Not a gamechanger. 

A tank's primary role is in a group with a healer, so his magicka and stamina regen are more important as they affect his ability to maintain agro, help CC, and mitigate with blocking.  In my experience though, if you get all the 1h/shield passives, you only use a lot of stamina blocking in large AoE situations, so how important stamina regen is on the hierarchy of needs falls more towards skill activation than damage mitigation.  Also, the third skill (Inner Fire) on the undaunted line is a ranged taunt using magicka which is a nice taunting alternative to the 1h/shield pierce armor for when you're low on stamina.

Anyways, if you're talking super long sustained fights, the redguard has to be a favorite based on their stamina regen passive or the Argonian for their healing received bonus and potion effectiveness.  But personally, for tough group or raid dungeon content (i.e. where a tank is most needed), or for AvA (where alpha defense and EHP are king if GW2 is any indication), I'll take the large max health and stamina passives that Imperials offer.

Imperial Templar focused on Physical Damage 2H/Bow, points in Stamina, items looking at Stamina and health regen, then + health

The Imperial isn't beefed up by design, from what I've read they didnt want to make the imperial edition be a form of pay to win so they made it equivalent to all other races in the areas that matter for combat, ava, pve, etc.  also, imperial isnt exclusive to preorder, its exclusive to the $20 extra imperial edition whether you preorder or not, one of the first cash shop items will be the imperial edition. 

I plan on making an imperial nightblade tank myself, thats the beauty of the game is that you can even make a sorcerer tank if you wanted to!  weapon and guild skills help with that, and sorcerers certainly have some decent spell protection they could use.  anything is possible in ESO if you choose your skill trees wisely :)  I personally like the idea of making toons that arent what would be considered the norm, though i still like to focus on linking racial and class buffs together for maximum effect, since imperial gets onehanded/shield bonus as well as stamina bonus, nightblade tank seemed logical

I will make my last post on this simple .

fact: average life at 50th is about 2000 hippoint

fact: difference a couple of you are calling " much larger health" is  2240  or 2120=  120 total

fact:  I myself think the +15% health regen is a much better choice then  the 120 more health

All that said my tank will be Argonian anyways. But if I was maxing a pure defence survival tank I would be orc or redguard.

Why is no-one taking into account the "Red Diamond" passive on imperials?  Do you think that will be inconsequential?  I'm told that at level 50 you can get 50 - 100 points back when that procs (every 20  secs?).

We are kind of arguing semantics here.  I just wanted to have some intelligent discussion on the matter :^)  In reality any of those five classes would make fine tanks if played well.  Opinions are just opinions.

Grymjack,

  I am taking it into account but I am aiming to run a DPS Melee Templar, Red Diamond only has a 10% proc chance per hit.

If you are tanking you may be blocking for a chunk of the time so the proc may be quite a bit more than 20s. but it is still only a trickle heal that probably will not get you through PvP burst damage. Luckily I am mostly care bear PvE, with some enthusiastic but amauterish PvP

It actually seems a perfect passive for Dual wield DPS really, lots of quick hits to maximise the amount of time it Procs

Me personally, I always like the non-human looking option. I think i will be going with an Argonian Nightblade for my first toon. This might not be optimal, but damn, they look cool :-)

I going with an imperial DK myself, but if I was going for a pure tank build I would probably go Redguard. All that stamina action is tough to discount. I'm largely just going imperial because I always have in TES games when available and I feel like I spent the money on it, I might as well get some use out of it. 

I'll be in imperial skin acting like a templar with disco fever, hunting stealthies and clothes-lining jockeys who don't feed their horses.