Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Strippling]

Pandaren disagree with you.



I think you forget that the Alliance lost a lot of unique features to the Horde when Blood Elves were added to the Horde in TBC. It was the most faction blurring action of Blizzard to date but apparently if it benefits the Horde you don't care about that.

Blood Elf Paladins are direct copies of Human Paladins. The Blood Elf Paladin mount is/was a recolor of the Human and Dwarf Paladin mounts (making them no longer unique). Also, with the way the Blood Elf Paladins were implemented the Horde got a light oriented race which until that time was exclusive to the Alliance. Metzen himself has said that giving Blood Elves paladins broke the existing lore.

The Alliance may have gotten Shaman in return, but they didn't get a shamanic race like the Orcs, Trolls or Tauren. Draenei are a Light oriented race with Vindicators (aka Paladins) as their token class. The most notable Alliance shaman is not even from a playable Alliance race but a Broken (Nobundo).

Until TBC, 75% of the Alliance races had a human colored skin-tone. In Classic the Alliance was basically defined as tall, small and tiny humans plus elves. Blood/High Elf models, although based on earlier lore, are essentially mix of these originally classic WoW Alliance core-race features and as such giving them to the Horde reduced faction uniqueness at the expense of the Alliance.

It's also worth noting that High Elf NPCs in vanilla were already friendly/allied to the Alliance while Blood Elves were hostile to both Horde and Alliance.

I can understand that Blizzard prefers different looking races in Horde and Alliance and that the art department prefers designing "new" races, but if they really cared about faction identity and uniqueness they would have designed a new "pretty" race for the Horde in TBC instead giving them Blood Elves.

Arguing that Alliance High Elves should not become playable because they would blur faction identity is therefore hypocritical since Blood Elves blurred those faction lines already when introduced in TBC.

Pure head canon at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Go play WCIII first before trying to cry that blood elfs took unique features of the Alliance.

[AngerFork]

They probably are already insane

The 3 sisters comic clearly showed the voices Alleria has to fight every day. She also states the void is not a gift but a struggle. It doesn't make sense any sane person would willingly choose it.

Also, it's in Blizzards interest to make Void Elves popular. Depicting them as lunatics who can turn on their allies at any moment, which would be according to the lore, is therefore not in Blizzards interest.

Heh, agreed on the insanity point. It's hard to see living in a world that is an endless void, turning yourself into a blue version while possibly changing your DNA, seeing most of your friends almost becoming nothingness, and following that up with "well, this is nice. Kinda like this." is not the truest form of sanity. Particularly when combined with the voices Alleria is very obviously dealing with. Also, I agree with your take that the true way they should be depicted is via complete insanity and instability.

But that still isn't something the High Elves have yet experienced. Someone that has gone through skydiving almost certainly would have a far different opinion of it than someone who knows a guy that skydived once. That experience counts. They might not choose it if they fully understood what they were unlocking...but as they've never experienced it, they don't. And the people that should warn them (the Void Elves) sure seem to me to be almost having fun with their reality bending/ending powers.

I'm not saying it will happen...I've got a few other ways to bring in the High Elves if Blizz actually wants to that I like to write up to improve my own game design skills as do I'm sure several others in this forum. But it's one possibility of how the lore could be stretched to make it happen.

[Strippling]

They are literally blood elves.

So in one breath you say blood elfs are not high elfs... but the next breath you say void elfs are literally blood elfs???? Contradiction much? I guess when you spew any and all "justifications" you can for high elfs you're bound to contradict yourself at some point... given that Horde high elfs (aka blood elfs) and Alliance high elfs are the.exact.same race.

Anyways, at the end of the day Blizz agree that high elfs are already playable and if you want to play them then the Horde is waiting there for you kiddo.

[Garfurion]

Pure head canon at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Go play WCIII first before trying to cry that blood elfs took unique features of the Alliance.

If it's head canon, proof me wrong with facts.

Neither in Warcraft 3 nor in lore did Blood Elf paladins exists, nor did they ride on horses which were a recolor of human mounts. In Warcraft 3 High&Blood Elves were also purely magical oriented, not light oriented.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Honestly? I just love how this thread just won't die.

[Ielenia]

So in one breath you say blood elfs are not high elfs... but the next breath you say void elfs are literally blood elfs???? Contradiction much?

There is no contradiction. Because you're conflating two separate arguments. Blood elves are no longer high elves, ever since they adopted the moniker "blood elf" by Kael'Thas' command for themselves, and kicked out all the other others who did not choose to not follow Kael'Thas.

As for the "void elves are blood elves" argument, it stems from Blizzard's "slap to the face" of the pro-high elf community, since instead of making the void elves be actual high elves, like the community has been asked, they instead decided to make them be comprised of blood elves.

[FlubberPuddy]

Honestly? I just love how this thread just won't die.

Honestly I'm not even trying to participate anymore but I keep getting quoted. If the post content itself isn't too dumb then I reply to it. If it is, I just ignore it.

[Ielenia]

High Elves are already a playable race. They're on the Horde.

Blood elves are on the Horde. The high elves aren't.

Saying that Blood Elves aren't High Elves is like saying that a member of the NRA isn't an American just because they joined a club.

You'd have a sliver of a point there if the NRA were distancing themselves from the US as their own country and not just a group.

Don't like the Horde? Tough shit. I don't like the Alliance, but I love Dwarves. But you don't see me whining and crying that there aren't "real" dwarves in the game simply because they're fucking Alliance.

You'd have a sliver of a point if there was an actual dwarven NPC group that is parts of the Horde that were the remaining members of the race when the majority decided to re-brand themselves and then join the Alliance.

- - - Updated - - -

Blood Elves are High Elves and we have word of god confirming this on multiple occasions. Even the character creator racial info box in game starts off by describing them as High Elves.

Because it's talking about their past. Night elves' racial info box would be calling the night elves "trolls" if it went back far enough for that. But I imagine you wouldn't argue that the night elves are trolls, would you?

They are the inheritors of the High Elven story and legacy.

Nope. They lost all "right of inheritance" when they decided to abandon the name and cut off all relations to it.

Alliance High Elves are also High Elves, but they are not a distinct group.

Yes, they are a distinct group. They have their own morals and philosophies.

Blood Elves have not sought to distance themselves from who they are.

Yes. They did. If not, they would not have completely excised any and all contact and relationship with those that still called themselves "high elves".

During the Burning Crusade, without the Sunwell, they might have been on the trajectory to becoming something different. But with the Sunwell's restoration and the increasing emphasis of the light within their society, they conform more strongly to the High Elf trope now than they have in the past.

Then why did they not re-take the name "high elf"? Sunwell or not, the blood elf philosophy changed, radically, from the way it was prior to the corruption of the Sunwell. To say they're "conforming to the trope more than ever" is just blatantly false.

So in Azeroth the Defias Brotherhood aren't Human because they don't follow the King of Stormwind?

I fail to recall either the Defias or the humans living in Stormwind ever deciding to call their race by a different moniker than the other group.

In Azeroth the Witherbark aren't Trolls because they are outside the Darkspear Tribe?
In Azeroth the Grimtotem Tribe aren't Tauren because they were kicked out of the Horde?

So now you're conflating races with tribes? Isn't that a bit dishonest of you?

The Blood Elves rebranded themselves. That is all they did. It did not mean they stopped being High Elves.

Actually... yes, they did. Because they did not just "re-brand" themselves. They exiled and cut off all relations to all the other elves who did not follow through with the re-branding.

There are no differences in culture. They use thalassian architecture when they can. They style their leader Ranger General. They conduct pilgrimages to the Sunwell. They title their hunters as Rangers and their mages as Magisters. As for the mutual hatred, so what? Attitude is not a feature of biology.

Both the orcs and the humans call some of their military "general", "commander", "soldier", "admiral", "lieutenant", etc...

Blood Elves have been declared to be High Elves on several occasions.

Can you give me a few examples of the blood elves referring to themselves as "high elves" in the present tense, and not when they're talking about their past, pre-Sunwell corruption?

As for your point about the Blood Elf model, that was from an argument from before Blizzcon 2017 when Void Elves were revealed and it is quaint you are bringing it up. Prior to the revelation of Void Elves, people referring to the Blood Elf model assumed it would be the entire package. Model, skin tones, hair colours, lore, aesthetics, theme. You know, all the important stuff. Model therefore referred to everything and the end result was, of course, an Alliance High Elf.

Ah, so now you're just piling on more stuff to the word "model"? Because this is the first time I'm hearing the word "model" being used as a synonym for "everything", so to speak, here.

Void Elves were just the model. It was as if you badly wanted the same toy another child had, despite having plenty of toys yourself, and when you finally got it everything but the basic frame had been stripped out and replaced with things that made it different. That is why Void Elves are a compromise, you got the model we'd have preferred to have kept Horde exclusive and in return the Horde keeps everything that makes a High Elf a High Elf in the from of a Blood Elf.

Except void elves are not a "compromise", in every sense of the word. You'd have a point in calling them a compromise if void elves were made of high elves... but they're not. They're made of blood elves.

Your perennial dissatisfaction is nobody's problem but yours.

I suppose you could take your own advice, then, and keep your "perennial dissatisfaction" toward the pro-high elf community to yourself?

No, they are not. Theywere Blood/High Elves.

Then you accept that blood elves are no longer high elves after they re-branded themselves? And funny how you consider void elves to be a different "race" despite them having the exact same culture as the blood elves, to the point of calling their mages "magisters" and so on.

As you've proven, you define 'High Elf's as exclusionary of the Blood Elves.

Because blood elves themselves excluded themselves from the "high elf" group.

Alliance High Elves if playable would therefore immediately define themselves as the true High Elves, with Horde Blood Elves in opposition.

But they are the "true" high elves. Playable or not, doesn't change that fact.

If you don't accept my definition that's fine but I am not going to limit my definition.

You mean you're not going to correct yourself. Got it.

The change in name does not mean they stopped being High Elf. It merely means they changed their name.

The name-change alone, no. But exiling and cutting off all relationships to those who did not "re-brand", yes, it does mean they stopped considering themselves 'high elves.

Frankly you are beginning to confuse me as to whether we are talking about Pandaren or Thalassian Elves on any given point.

The real world analogue of thalassian elves is Cuba as discussed previously.

There is no real world analogue for the Pandaren. Pandaren are a neutral race, but small groups of them join the Alliance and Horde.

Pandaren are a thematically, culturally and biologically identical group available to both factions without differentiation between them. This has proven to be a mistake, as discussed previously.

Alliance High Elves as an option are thematically, culturally and biologically identical to already playable Blood Elves. Allowing them to be played on the Alliance would be the same mistake as Pandaren yet on a vastly grander scale, as while Pandaren were introduced as neutral to both sides at the same time, Blood Elves have been Horde for twelve years.

So you're also not correcting your objectively wrong definition of the word "neutral"? Ok, got it.

I have been explicit that my definition of Core race is reflective of both gameplay and lore. You insist I produce a purely lore based definition.

Because all you've given is a gameplay only definition of the term. "Participating in a quest chain as the player" is not a "lore definition" in any sense whatsoever.

"A core race is so intrinsic to the faction you can play them from the get go whereas Allied races have to be earned in game. Their intrinsic nature is a by-product of their lore standing with the faction."

And there you go, giving more "pure gameplay" definitions, again.

The question revolved around gameplay and lore and how they are linked. You are attempting to isolate them to prove a point. I have actually forgotten what the point you were attempting to prove was, it might have been the core race thing but this has developed along a quite useless tangent so it could have been anything.

That's because you refuse to address the question about the lore definition of your term "core races".

Regardless, gameplay and lore are linked and inform each other and cannot be separated into neat little boxes that never interact.

No, they are not linked, and yes, you can separate them into "neat little boxes." Just because they just happen to coincide at certain points does not mean they are linked.

[Clone]

Purely and simply blizzard has angered a lot of fans by having "Void Elves" Instead of "High Elves" and It only shows how poorly they are communicating with us. I mean It's not like we haven't been wanting this since forever, right?

Blizzard has this shitty tendency to try and put their spin on shit. Players asked for housing, they make garrison. Players asked for war, they make BfA. Players ask for subrace customization, we get allied races. For some reason they can't help themselves.

[Jekyll]

I'm going to repeat myself again. The only way High Elves can be made into a playable wow race is by re-branding themselves into other names like Wildborne, or Dire Elf, or Runeborne, or Rune Elf.

[BTHSE]

In Warcraft 3 High&Blood Elves were also purely magical oriented, not light oriented.

That is not entirely true as I'd like to remind you about the High Elven priest unit from Warcraft III, the only light aligned non-hero human unit in that game if I remember correctly. Elves have been shown as mostly magic oriented ever since Warcraft III but they did have a connection to the light even back then. Which is not to say that it invalidates all of your point. Just something worth clarifying.

[Obelisk Kai]

If it's head canon, proof me wrong with facts.

Neither in Warcraft 3 nor in lore did Blood Elf paladins exists, nor did they ride on horses which were a recolor of human mounts. In Warcraft 3 High&Blood Elves were also purely magical oriented, not light oriented.

High Elf Paladins existed from the Second War onwards, although they were very small in number. Mehlar Dawnblade is an example of a Paladin trained by Uther himself.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Mehlar_Dawnblade

In Warcraft 3 High Elves and Blood Elves were portrayed as both Mages and Priests. Lady Liadrin was a High Elf priest at this time. They lost their faith in the light following Quel'thalas' destruction by the Scourge but it was restored by the restoration of the Sunwell.

So I am afraid, yes, this was head canon and yes you have been proven wrong with facts.

- - - Updated - - -

Because it's talking about their past. Night elves' racial info box would be calling the night elves "trolls" if it went back far enough for that. But I imagine you wouldn't argue that the night elves are trolls, would you?

The Night Elf info box doesn't go back to Trolls because it is irrelevant to who Night Elves are today. It took many years for that Troll tribe to evolve into Night Elves, and they bathed in the energy of the well of eternity to accomplish this. In other words, an external, transformative force just like the Nightborne and Void Elves went through.

What transformative event have the Blood Elves been through to justify your comparison? When Kael made his proclamation changing the name, did all Elves present feel something physical changing within them that differentiated them from what would become Alliance High Elves? I know words have power but suggesting they can cause instant mutation in over ninety percent of your race stretches credulity does it not?

So no, I won't be arguing Night Elves are Trolls because that split took place over ten thousand years ago in game, took some time to accomplish and was facilitated by an outside energy source. It is a false equivalence with Blood Elves, who are High Elves, and the Alliance High Elves who are identical to Blood Elves in every respect save political opinion.

Nope. They lost all "right of inheritance" when they decided to abandon the name and cut off all relations to it.

They kept the city. They kept the lands. They kept their language. They kept the Sunwell. They kept their Magisters. They kept their Farstriders. Blood Elves are not portrayed in being any way different from High Elves from fifteen years ago, because they aren't. They are the inheritors of what a High Elf is, and being High Elf defines part of being what a Blood Elf is. Alliance High Elves have no right to redefine the concept.

Yes, they are a distinct group. They have their own morals and philosophies.

No, they don't. And even if they did that would simply be a matter of attitude. You do not make a new race in faction based game by using attitude as a point of differentiation.

Yes. They did. If not, they would not have completely excised any and all contact and relationship with those that still called themselves "high elves".

That group was excised due to a hardline stance that endangered Quel'thalas and later because they chose their affiliation with the Alliance over loyalty to their own people. You don't make nice with traitors and that isn't a Blood Elf stance, that's a universal stance.

Then why did they not re-take the name "high elf"? Sunwell or not, the blood elf philosophy changed, radically, from the way it was prior to the corruption of the Sunwell. To say they're "conforming to the trope more than ever" is just blatantly false.

Blood Elf philosophy was predicated on doing anything to survive after the destruction of the Sunwell. But the name Blood Elf was not taken to signify a philosophical shift. We were told why the name was taken, in memory of what they had lost. Ninety percent of their people were wiped out in a few days. The restoration of the Sunwell however means the Blood Elves are no longer desperate to secure their survival, the addiction that threatened to doom them is sated.

As for the trope, what exactly is a High Elf in wider fiction? They tend to be arrogant, somewhat isolationist, living in splendid cities, contemptuous of other races to varying degrees and with a high skill in magic.

High Elves historically have been arrogant, they were isolationist in the Second War when they attempted to avoid participation in line with long standing policy, they lived in the splendid city of Silvermoon, they thought Humans, Dwarves and Gnomes were beneath them and they were a race extremely skilled in the use of magic.

Blood Elves are arrogant, they are no longer isolationist as they can no longer afford to be, they live in the splendid city of Silvermoon and they think Orcs, Tauren and Trolls aren't as sophisticated as they are. They are a race extremely skilled in the use of magic.

So as you can see, Warcraft High Elves have always been rooted in the wider trope from fantasy. The only shift I can truly see between when they were High Elves and the now when they are Blood Elves is that their tendency to be isolationist has been beaten out of them, but I don't think you'll make a strong case that Alliance High Elves who are happily having Half Elf children whilst living in a Human city are different from Blood Elves in that regard.

I fail to recall either the Defias or the humans living in Stormwind ever deciding to call their race by a different moniker than the other group.

Still a group rebelling against the lawful authority of their race. They called themselves Defias, but in every other aspect they are identical to playable Humans. They have their own 'morals' and 'philosophies'.

So now you're conflating races with tribes? Isn't that a bit dishonest of you?

No, they are factions of existing races. But they are still in the end the same race. Just as Alliance High Elves are a small faction of the High Elf race, of whom by far the biggest group is the Blood Elves.

Both the orcs and the humans call some of their military "general", "commander", "soldier", "admiral", "lieutenant", etc...

Yep so why don't the Alliance High Elves use terms like that more often rather than using thalassian titles? It's because they share the same culture with the Blood Elves.

Can you give me a few examples of the blood elves referring to themselves as "high elves" in the present tense, and not when they're talking about their past, pre-Sunwell corruption?

Yet the fact they talk about being High Elves in the past shows that they are in fact High Elves. I said before, Blood Elves, as the majority of the thalassian race and inheritor of the High Elf narrative, have the right to define what a High Elf is. What they have defined it as is a Blood Elf. A Blood Elf is a High Elf who followed Kael and took on the new name in remembrance of what was lost. No Blood Elf will term themselves a High Elf, to do so should be seen as forgetting why they changed the name in the first place. But that is not because they have abandoned BEING High Elves, left it to the Alliance remnants to redefine what that is. It is because Blood Elves have redefined High Elf.

Ah, so now you're just piling on more stuff to the word "model"? Because this is the first time I'm hearing the word "model" being used as a synonym for "everything", so to speak, here.

Then you clearly weren't paying attention. Void Elves were not a thing until they were datamined in the summer of 2017. The request was always for High Elves. It was presumed they would either use the Blood Elf model, in which case they would be stealing a duplicate of a Horde race or they would get a model of their own, in which case Blizzard was copying the theme and aesthetics of a Horde race onto a new model with no explanation and giving no reason why Horde Blood Elves wouldn't be able to use it. Because nobody ever imagined a blue skinned blood/high elf as a compromise prior to it actually happening. Once it did, theme, aesthetic and lore were divorced from the base model.

Except void elves are not a "compromise", in every sense of the word. You'd have a point in calling them a compromise if void elves were made of high elves... but they're not. They're made of blood elves.

As Blood Elves are High Elves it strikes me that you are putting forward quite a fine distinction.

It also ignores the truth that there is nothing stopping you from roleplaying a Void Elf as a former member of the Silver Covenant who has embraced the void. While not explicitly stated, it is heavily implied that the Void Elves are capable of recruiting.

And you are putting forward a complaint that is intensely personal. We know from plenty of threads that potential High Elf customization like options are a goal of several people. These players would be more than happy with such a result and they wouldn't care that not a single High Elf was explicitly stated to have made the leap to Void Elf. It is wrong for you to argue that because of your specific gripe, Void Elves are a failed compromise. That is why they failed as a compromise for YOU, not everyone.

I suppose you could take your own advice, then, and keep your "perennial dissatisfaction" toward the pro-high elf community to yourself?

Given the way your community turns every thread they dominate into an echo chamber if unchallenged wherein everything from the class your High Elf is going to be, to the name you've reserved on a level 1 alt for that glorious day it actually happens, I think not. Your dissatisfaction is your own, you are free to speak about it and you are free to receive all the feedback that is richly deserved as to why it shouldn't and probably won't happen (the TLDR response is Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable, Void Elves are there if you don't like Horde). The High Elf Echo chamber link can be found here https://www.wowhead.com/discord-servers under miscellaneous.

Then you accept that blood elves are no longer high elves after they re-branded themselves? And funny how you consider void elves to be a different "race" despite them having the exact same culture as the blood elves, to the point of calling their mages "magisters" and so on.

How on earth do you make these leaps of logic? Void Elves are a different race because they got blasted by void magic triggering an obvious magical mutation. There was an event explaining it. We participated in the event. If you've forgotten there's probably a video on youtube. But the 'how' of Void Elves becoming a different race is well documented. Their culture is also not the same as Blood/High Elves. It has been contorted by a heavy emphasis on the void, Blood/High Elven culture through a mirror darkly. They use the same titles, yes, but that's because they are a variant of a Blood/High Elf. In contrast, Blood Elves and Alliance High Elves are identical. How much simpler does this need to be parsed down? Void Elves are acceptable because they are a clear variant. Alliance High Elves are identical to Blood Elves and so are not.

But they are the "true" high elves. Playable or not, doesn't change that fact.

Blood Elves are the true High Elves of the Warcraft universe. This has been stated by Blizzard when they declared that for anyone seeking a High Elf, the Horde is waiting for you.
A dying group fading away hanging onto an adjective does not change this. Nor does that adjective give them the right to exclude Blood Elves from the definition. The travel of direction for the Alliance High Elves is clear. They will sire Half Elves, or turn into Void Elves. All the while their numbers will keep falling until they completely assimilate with human culture.

The name-change alone, no. But exiling and cutting off all relationships to those who did not "re-brand", yes, it does mean they stopped considering themselves 'high elves.

It means they changed the definition of what a High Elf is, as their right and perogative as the vast majority of their race.

Because all you've given is a gameplay only definition of the term. "Participating in a quest chain as the player" is not a "lore definition" in any sense whatsoever.

Core race is a term referring to the major races of the Horde and Alliance that are so intrinsic to the faction's story they are granted to the player from the get go rather than having to be earned by players.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Blood elves are on the Horde. The high elves aren't.

Wrong. Blood elves ARE high elves, just with a different fucking name. They're a political faction, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. They are the same fucking race.

You'd have a sliver of a point there if the NRA were distancing themselves from the US as their own country and not just a group.

Fine. Then compare them to Sovereign Citizens. Or, even better, the Confederates during the American Civil War.

[FlubberPuddy]

Wrong. Blood elves ARE high elves, just with a different fucking name. They're a political faction, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. They are the same fucking race.


Fine. Then compare them to Sovereign Citizens. Or, even better, the Confederates during the American Civil War.

What I don't understand about this argument is that Highmountain Tauren are still Tauren, Mag'har are still Orcs, Zandalari still Trolls, Kul'Tirans still humans (even they have regular human models in their society, just not playable to us), Dark Iron still Dwarves.

So when this argument is made are you trying to say Blizzard doesn't want duplicate races playable? Because we already have duplicates of races. If Blizzard wanted us to not play "the same fucking race" then we wouldn't have extra trolls, humans, elves, dwarves, etc.

Or are you trying to say there isn't a big enough difference visually between High Elves and Blood Elves right now? Which is another argument that falls apart because Kul'Tirans didn't look any different from playable Humans in-game until Blizzard decided to change their looks in BFA and give an explanation for why that came to be.

We also have Jeremy Feasel bringing up Wildhammer again as a possibility in the future, and Alex Afrasiabi mentioning High Elf fantasy possibility on Void Elves. So we have recent accounts of developers being more open to "X race, but only Y is different" (ex: Dwarf race but with blue tattoos).

[Garfurion]

That is not entirely true as I'd like to remind you about the High Elven priest unit from Warcraft III, the only light aligned non-hero human unit in that game if I remember correctly. Elves have been shown as mostly magic oriented ever since Warcraft III but they did have a connection to the light even back then. Which is not to say that it invalidates all of your point. Just something worth clarifying.

The High Elf priest unit was trained in the Arcane Sanctum, together with the sorceress and spell breaker units, clearly referring to an arcane background more than holy light/temple/church background.

The WoW classic game manual also referred to the holy waters of the Sunwell. Clearly indicating the High/Blood Elves saw the Sunwell as holy which would mean their priests were also focused on the Sunwell, a purely arcane source of power at that time.

The Blood of the Highborne novella further supports this notion: "the Sunwell: the magnificent heart of their society, a nurturing source of mystical energies, and a seemingly inexhaustible fount of arcane power".

Trolls, Forsaken and Tauren also have priests but it doesn't mean they are light-oriented races.

[FlubberPuddy]

The High Elf priest unit was trained in the Arcane Sanctum, together with the sorceress and spell breaker units, clearly referring to an arcane background more than holy light/temple/church background.

The WoW classic game manual also referred to the holy waters of the Sunwell. Clearly indicating the High/Blood Elves saw the Sunwell as holy which would mean their priests were also focused on the Sunwell, a purely arcane source of power at that time.

The Blood of the Highborne novella further supports this notion: "the Sunwell: the magnificent heart of their society, a nurturing source of mystical energies, and a seemingly inexhaustible fount of arcane power".

Trolls, Forsaken and Tauren also have priests but it doesn't mean they are light-oriented races.

This was enlightening

[Doctor Funkenstein]

What I don't understand about this argument is that Highmountain Tauren are still Tauren, Mag'har are still Orcs, Zandalari still Trolls, Kul'Tirans still humans (even they have regular human models in their society, just not playable to us), Dark Iron still Dwarves.

And no one says that there aren't playable Tauren, Orcs, Trolls, Humans, or Dwarves.

[BTHSE]

The High Elf priest unit was trained in the Arcane Sanctum, together with the sorceress and spell breaker units, clearly referring to an arcane background more than holy light/temple/church background.

The WoW classic game manual also referred to the holy waters of the Sunwell. Clearly indicating the High/Blood Elves saw the Sunwell as holy which would mean their priests were also focused on the Sunwell, a purely arcane source of power at that time.

The Blood of the Highborne novella further supports this notion: "the Sunwell: the magnificent heart of their society, a nurturing source of mystical energies, and a seemingly inexhaustible fount of arcane power".

Trolls, Forsaken and Tauren also have priests but it doesn't mean they are light-oriented races.

"The high elven priests use their Light-given powers to heal the wounded and bolster the spirits of Lordaeron's fighting elite." - The Warcraft III Manual entry for the Elven Priest.

Not Arcane-Given. Not Sunwell-Given. Light given.

Furthermore the lore for Blood Knights is that they are a mixture of former priests and royal guards who had lost faith in the light and decided to control it instead of light powers being granted to them through faith. Liadrin was a devout follower of the light. Light worship is a part of High Elven history according to lore. Now, now, I know that it's lore that was written for TBC so I'm sure you'll want to dismiss it as giving a background with the light to a race race that did not have it. To that I say fair enough.

But now here's the kicker : the World of Warcraft RPG makes several mentions of the fact that light worship was part of high elven society. Aha! "But girl, the RPGs are not considered canon!" You are ab-so-lu-tely right disembodied voice in my head, the RPG books are not considered canon today. But do you know when they were considered canon lore sources and featured as such on the official world of warcraft website? Back before TBC.

So there ya go. Whether you want to go by current or outdated canon it's considered that wielding and worshiping the light is part of High Elven culture since at the very least the third war. Which, once again, does not invalidate all of the points you have made previously. I'm just kind of a c*nt when it comes to lore points.

[matrix123mko]

They had light priests but I would not call them exceedingly religious. Their faith in Elune, their ancestral deity, has been forsaken. Why would they care about some foreign religion if they don't care to maintain their own? I would call Liadrin and her followers a minority.

[BTHSE]

They had light priests but I would not call them exceedingly religious. Their faith in Elune, their ancestral deity, has been forsaken. Why would they care about some foreign religion if they don't care to maintain their own? I would call Liadrin and her followers a minority.

They most likely were overall. I just care to dismiss the notion that Elves are purely magic oriented or that they had.... Arcane Powered Holy Priests..