"These women fight with unmatched savagery!... They are... perfect warriors!"

[Nathreim]

The problem with the quote is Blizz has spent years weakening the Night Elves to the point they dont resemble anything from Warcraft 3.

this is a heavy quote because grom's one of the greatest warriors to ever exist. if he says that the average nelf sentinel is the perfect warrior, their peak for performance should shit on everyone else in wow.

also, look back to the night elven empire dominating zandalari forces during the ascension of the night elves. they absolutely decimated the zandalari with ease.

The Zandalari were not dominated by Sentinels which did not exist at the time. They were dominated by superior magic of the Well of Eternity in the hands of the Night Elves. Also men used to dominate the Night Elf army until the Legion basically destroyed it during the War of the Ancients.

Not to mention the Zandalari and all Troll Empires were nearly destroyed by the Aquir and were a shadow of their former selves. If not for that even the Night Elves superior magic would not have been enough to defeat the Zandalari and other Troll Empires.

[Flarelaine]

Its stated and always has been stated in canon that their empire rose from magic.

Then their mages betrayed them to become satyr or nagas. They have spent the last ten thousand years eschewing wizardry.

[Syegfryed]

...guess we're just hand-waving away that whole "Drinking the demon blood to increase our strength and power" concept?

they did because Gul'dan sell that as the only way to win the war back in draenor

Grom was a rare specimen in the orc race, he was thinner than the average bulky orc like Garrosh or Saurfang by example, he won his fights more because of technique, that is explained in one of the old books

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I'm sure if the Elves had some kind of extra "power" behind them then they would have...took Demonblood Orcs and they still fought.

Now you'd think the Night Elves were weaker Warriors than Gnomes....

they took the demonblood because the elves came with reinforcements and a demigod entity who fucked up most of the orchish defenses, builds and killed then

[ravenmoon]

That quote may not be the most well known in Warcraft - though certainly up there - but it is the most influential by far.

Is too much weight put behind this above quote from Grom? What I mean is, Night Elf fans seem to always fall back on this quote when discussing how powerful Night Elves should be. They don't seemingly have anything else to fall back on in regards to how mighty individual Night Elves are supposed to be, not even from WC3 itself which didn't capitalize on how "Perfect" the night elves are aside from saying it the one time- mind you, they then proceed to have the one Orcish clan demolish the offending army of "Perfect warriors". They have no particular warriors of note; yes they have leaders and generals, but those either fall back on magic, or are neither portrayed nor stated to be especially skilled like champions of other races may be said to be; the closest is Shandris but in novels she's portrayed as average, and in game its hard to tell since she's more or less on par with anyone else you might partner with, the most that can be said is she doesn't like planning things out.

This isn't to dis on Night Elves mind you. Rather, I feel that many have hamstrung themselves by putting way to much behind the words of one single individual. It's almost ironic that the most important thing to many Night Elf fans is the words of an Orc. It makes discussion difficult as often it falls back into complaining about how Night Elves were once great warriors! Remember that time Grom said the thing!?

His use of the word savagery has had a 1/4 of night elf fans thinking the race concept is a savage elf - especially when they link SOME of Chris metzen's early concept art for night elves when he was figuuring out waht they would be - concept they didn't run with - yet the one term savage has had forum users claiming the night elves are savage despite EVERYTHING from what we read bou tthem to what we see of them in game and in manuals from start to finish show the EXACT contrary.

Grom's statmeent of savagery could only ever be applied to how they fought n combat and nothing else. Even in the most humble settings the night elves have been portrayed as graceful and elegant.

Another thing from this statement and much of the night elves opening, is that it is obvious that at the time, the devs intended them to be the standard bearers, new epic ancient race, more like how you might regard the Mogu, but good instead. The progenitors of the hgih elves that immediately struck me has having elven traits like magical nature, dexterity and intellec.. all the things you would expect of elves, the night elves had it in and were given it to very high degrees, whether hgih magic arcane fantasy - as their pre-sundering civilization, or forest nature magic - another thing associated with elves in popular fantasy. They were given heightened intelligence, longevity to the extent of immortality, greater stature/strength, and came packaged with greater magical history.

It is quite obvious and clear that those are not the night elves we have, and the devs abandoned their intention to develop them. An eldar race, only rumoured as long extinct in WC2, suddenly discovered to still be around and needed to figh the epic burning legion. I would have loved them toremain as such and unplayable.

I suspect playability was the reason (or excuse) for the huge nerf bats that came their way. Totally un-neccessary cos the alliance ight elves only needed to be a faction of young night elves, breaking free with the conclusion of the Long vigil, taken by wanderlust, and obviously not as accomplished or honed as the 10k year old legends. That's what we shoud have had happen. it's okay for the youngesters to be much weaker, more human friendly and un par with the best of the other races., whereas their sires reamined aloof and apart from all the nonsense to be used properly for story telling.

Shame they still refuse to go down this path. I would take the night elves and nightborne out of the factions and leave a group of younger ones loyal, so the player elves have representation. THen write the NElves seriously again.

[tankbug]

That quote may not be the most well known in Warcraft - though certainly up there - but it is the most influential by far.

Is too much weight put behind this above quote from Grom? What I mean is, Night Elf fans seem to always fall back on this quote when discussing how powerful Night Elves should be. They don't seemingly have anything else to fall back on in regards to how mighty individual Night Elves are supposed to be, not even from WC3 itself which didn't capitalize on how "Perfect" the night elves are aside from saying it the one time- mind you, they then proceed to have the one Orcish clan demolish the offending army of "Perfect warriors". They have no particular warriors of note; yes they have leaders and generals, but those either fall back on magic, or are neither portrayed nor stated to be especially skilled like champions of other races may be said to be; the closest is Shandris but in novels she's portrayed as average, and in game its hard to tell since she's more or less on par with anyone else you might partner with, the most that can be said is she doesn't like planning things out.

This isn't to dis on Night Elves mind you. Rather, I feel that many have hamstrung themselves by putting way to much behind the words of one single individual. It's almost ironic that the most important thing to many Night Elf fans is the words of an Orc. It makes discussion difficult as often it falls back into complaining about how Night Elves were once great warriors! Remember that time Grom said the thing!?

Not sure why Grom would claim that they fight with unmatched savagery, and why that would make them perfect warriors. They weren't particularly savage, unless he refers to their ability to blend in with the forrest to elude or surprise the enemy. He could refer to the druids turning into animals, but I don't think he had encountered them at the time. If I was Grom, I would have been more impressed about their ability to find allies in anything living in the forrest, their stealth and archery. As reflected in the game, orcs don't usually have a problem taking them in hand-to-hand combat.

[Toppy]

Then their mages betrayed them to become satyr or nagas. They have spent the last ten thousand years eschewing wizardry.

They abandoned one type of magic and took up others. They were still, ironically, led by powerful magic users: One divine, one nature.

It was always a weird irony that they abandoned one highly magical and charismatic queen for another. Sure, Tyrande doesn't call herself a queen, but her position is still one entirely based on magic as she did nothing to earn it but have a beacon of light shine on her. Abandoned their monarchy for a theocracy.

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At what point do we give up on how a 17 year old game depicted a race, and just accept how they're depicted in the most recent development.

My point is that their WC3 depiction isn't far off from the WoW one. They weren't really portrayed as especially powerful or mighty, needing either saving more often than not, or major allies. More so than the other races.

[Maljinwo]

The Zandalari were not dominated by Sentinels which did not exist at the time. They were dominated by superior magic of the Well of Eternity in the hands of the Night Elves. Also men used to dominate the Night Elf army until the Legion basically destroyed it during the War of the Ancients.

Not to mention the Zandalari and all Troll Empires were nearly destroyed by the Aquir and were a shadow of their former selves. If not for that even the Night Elves superior magic would not have been enough to defeat the Zandalari and other Troll Empires.

The troll Empires rose after the war against the Aqir as was retconned in Chronicle 1.

However the Empire of Zul didn't really have the unity shown against the Aqir. The Amani and Gurubashi were left to their own devices for millenia, with the Zandalari doing their own thing as well.
After the Kaldorei began expanding, it was their magic backed with the power of the Well of Eternity that caused the trolls to fall back.
Only by signing a treaty between the Zandalari and Aszhara the war stopped. Something that humilliated the trolls which is why even today Night Elves are treated with disdain and resentment


Maybe if the Trolls had stood united as they did against the Aqir they could've fought for much longer. We'll never know as Warcraft is a cycle of ancient races being toppled by younger ones constantly

[Tiwack]

I believe he only says this quote if the orcs are in a losing position during the game, which is why I might've never heard of it.

QFT - Gotta keep source and context in mind before going off on tangents making a fool of yourself /thread

[Nnyco]

Well he also said to drink demonblood, so not sure if its word is something you wanna listen to.

[Ardenaso]

Void Elves, Blood Elves, High Elves, Vampire Elves what's next??

it was the best when there were High Elves and Night Elves.

Vampire Scourge Elves, Egyptian-French Thin Elves, Spider Elves, Forsaken High Elves, Forsaken Night Elves

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At what point do we give up on how a 17 year old game depicted a race, and just accept how they're depicted in the most recent development.

Warcraft 3 purists exist in large amounts. I don't blame them since WoW is full of retcons and inconsistencies

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[matrix123mko]

On-Topic: The wardens alone, are badass but that was about it. Imagine how strong they were to fight Illidan 1v1 and capture him half the time.

Off-topic.

I've never understood how Night Elves evolved from trolls, but somehow gained immortality from Elune? Like did she choose them? Or did she choose the trolls and they just never registered to pray to her because of all their loa? How did the Night Elves find out about her?

The immortality component is likely due to arcane, not Elune. This is why other elves are immortal too and this also explains why are eredar, a race that lived on titan's blood, were immortal.

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I think first problem with nelves was that they joined Alliance. Same mistake when forsaken and blood elves joined Horde.

Nigh elves , forsaken and belfs can alone fill their own faction but they ended as punching bags for either Alliance or Horde. Wow did this years back..sadly.

With Sylvanas as warchief, we had a chance to change that, making tauren and trolls punching bags. However, someone really wanted to rehash controversial storyling.

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Then their mages betrayed them to become satyr or nagas. They have spent the last ten thousand years eschewing wizardry.

And that's why they became weak. What I don't understand is why did naga get weak too.

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Shame they still refuse to go down this path. I would take the night elves and nightborne out of the factions and leave a group of younger ones loyal, so the player elves have representation. THen write the NElves seriously again.

Don't blood elves and forsaken deserve similar treatment too? Also, I need to add an obligatory comment about nightborne being closer to blood elves.

[ravenmoon]

Don't blood elves and forsaken deserve similar treatment too? Also, I need to add an obligatory comment about nightborne being closer to blood elves.

Indeed, but I am trying to avoid writing an essay.

Forsaken are actually that faction of undead. Remember the undead are the scourge, forsaken are a small number of them allied to a faction.

[eurojust]

They abandoned one type of magic and took up others. They were still, ironically, led by powerful magic users: One divine, one nature.

It was always a weird irony that they abandoned one highly magical and charismatic queen for another. Sure, Tyrande doesn't call herself a queen, but her position is still one entirely based on magic as she did nothing to earn it but have a beacon of light shine on her. Abandoned their monarchy for a theocracy.

The issue is that the Highbornes were tempted and began to tap the energies of the Well of Eternity again. So there's no hypocrisy here. Tyrande is a princess in Wc3 lore by the way, and no, she wasn't the only leader of the Night Elves. She fought alongside with Malfurion and attacked Azshara directly.

My point is that their WC3 depiction isn't far off from the WoW one. They weren't really portrayed as especially powerful or mighty, needing either saving more often than not, or major allies. More so than the other races.

They were mighty if you take into account that they defeated the Legion. Malfurion had the same power lvl of Azshara and they had powerful units which made them a unique faction.

[Toppy]

The issue is that the Highbornes were tempted and began to tap the energies of the Well of Eternity again. So there's no hypocrisy here. Tyrande is a princess in Wc3 lore by the way, and no, she wasn't the only leader of the Night Elves. She fought alongside with Malfurion and attacked Azshara directly.




They were mighty if you take into account that they defeated the Legion. Malfurion had the same power lvl of Azshara and they had powerful units which made them a unique faction.

Never said it was hypocritical.
The WC3 book DOES mention she's a "Night Elf Princess" but also goes into zero detail on this. It also states she leads both their military and is the high priestess with Malfurion leading the Druids. So it specificly states there are only two leaders of the night elves.

She was a novice priestess in the war of the ancients who was stated to be especially touched by Elune but no explanation was given for this, it just was. That is to say, there was no mention of her personally doing anything special; it was an odd part of the book series in that she was always said to be special, but she was always just doing the normal stuff expected of priestess. Her "attacking Azshara" was a failed attack that saw all her companions dead and her nearly so, whose main accomplishment was pissing Malfurion off enough that HE was able to mess up Azshara.


They were portrayed mighty alongside none-Elven allies. Again, their campaign was largely them getting their ass kicked until more nature allies and druids were brought into the fold. The sentinels on their own were just a constant punching bag in the WC3 campaign.

Malfurion also was not stated to be on the same level as Azshara. She was stated to be on the same level as Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden. He's certainly powerful as hell mind you, likely the most powerful "good guy" currently. But a lot of his power has come to him in recent times. If he was on Azshara's level in WC3, then WC3 would have been way different.

[Shelly]

night elves before were way more "wood elves" or like the drow

now they are just some cliche lotr elf being human buddies

This is how I know you've never really read Lord of the Rings in general and the Silmarillion in specific.

[eurojust]

Never said it was hypocritical.
The WC3 book DOES mention she's a "Night Elf Princess" but also goes into zero detail on this. It also states she leads both their military and is the high priestess with Malfurion leading the Druids. So it specificly states there are only two leaders of the night elves.

She was a novice priestess in the war of the ancients who was stated to be especially touched by Elune but no explanation was given for this, it just was. That is to say, there was no mention of her personally doing anything special; it was an odd part of the book series in that she was always said to be special, but she was always just doing the normal stuff expected of priestess. Her "attacking Azshara" was a failed attack that saw all her companions dead and her nearly so, whose main accomplishment was pissing Malfurion off enough that HE was able to mess up Azshara.


They were portrayed mighty alongside none-Elven allies. Again, their campaign was largely them getting their ass kicked until more nature allies and druids were brought into the fold. The sentinels on their own were just a constant punching bag in the WC3 campaign.

Malfurion also was not stated to be on the same level as Azshara. She was stated to be on the same level as Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden. He's certainly powerful as hell mind you, likely the most powerful "good guy" currently. But a lot of his power has come to him in recent times. If he was on Azshara's level in WC3, then WC3 would have been way different.

Malfurion went to fight 1v1 Azshara while she was fully prepared since Illidan warned her. No one won. So yes, i can assume that Malfurion was more or less at the same lvl.
Azshara having the same power lvl as Archimonde is something from Knaak. I'm not even sure that he wrote that. Powerlvl are all over the place in WoW.
The manual mentions that Tyrande only leads the Sentinels which was created to defend Ashenvale and protect the men who were sleeping. She isn't the sole leader of the Night Elves : It's Cenarius, Malfurion, Tyrande. You also have the Watchers who don't obey to her.

As for the "non-Elven" allies, they were part of the Night Elves as a faction. That's the whole point. That's why they were able to be their own faction : Mountain Giants, chimaeras, dryads, etc. WoW got rid of them, hence the downgrade.

[ravenmoon]

Malfurion went to fight 1v1 Azshara while she was fully prepared since Illidan warned her. No one won. So yes, i can assume that Malfurion was more or less at the same lvl.
Azshara having the same power lvl as Archimonde is something from Knaak. I'm not even sure that he wrote that. Powerlvl are all over the place in WoW.
The manual mentions that Tyrande only leads the Sentinels which was created to defend Ashenvale and protect the men who were sleeping. She isn't the sole leader of the Night Elves : It's Cenarius, Malfurion, Tyrande. You also have the Watchers who don't obey to her.

As for the "non-Elven" allies, they were part of the Night Elves as a faction. That's the whole point. That's why they were able to be their own faction : Mountain Giants, chimaeras, dryads, etc. WoW got rid of them, hence the downgrade.

I wouldn't equate Malfurion with Azshara because of their fight. Malfurion was very intelligent, you could say a creative genius, like an ordinary extraordinary person - that is the vibe that comes up... he achieves impossible things with what seems like next to nothing.

[Syegfryed]

This is how I know you've never really read Lord of the Rings in general and the Silmarillion in specific.

excuse-me, i forget elves have fragile ego, the peter jackson version of elves

its undeniable how elves became shit in wow compared to their wc3 version in a tentative to archive that

[Shelly]

excuse-me, i forget elves have fragile ego, the peter jackson version of elves

its undeniable how elves became shit in wow compared to their wc3 version in a tentative to archive that

That's much better, thank you.

[matrix123mko]

This is how I know you've never really read Lord of the Rings in general and the Silmarillion in specific.

People always think about Legolas and forget about previous elven generations.

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Indeed, but I am trying to avoid writing an essay.

Forsaken are actually that faction of undead. Remember the undead are the scourge, forsaken are a small number of them allied to a faction.

Forsaken have quite big population. To be honest, they could have bigger population than Horde in Kalimdor that consists of orcs and trolls that came on couple of ships.