Night Elves, Magic & the Arcane - Common Misconceptions & Things You Didn't Consider

[sam86]

i think i answer fairly, after warcraft they lost power, magic, numbers and beasts, and never being able to replenish their numbers
dumb mountain giants rly are part of a "society"? what you want then to do, be playable? cause if it is to help as canon folder i think they still do, with treants, i did a few quests with then back then.
the giants were not that numerous either
Fight a war also lower your numbers, and they had dragon help
how with the men sleeping?
and warcraft 3 happened, when the lost everything
in wc3 as forsaken you had plenty of undead options too, just saying both got cut, and there was not canon numbers back then

-what made them lose 'more' than rest of alliance and horde? how did they lose more when they were involved in last months of campaign vs ppl who were fighting BL at least months longer?
-at least show them like ancients walking in their cities, not flat out hostile? same for chimeras, who are showing zero relation to nelf anymore in wow
-1 war in over 10k years won't reduce them that much
-u just talked about war of shifting sands, and it had lot of men awake, not all men slept, they had shifts, in fact did Fandral ever sleep for example, and he is 2nd best druid
-yes but they should had massive numbers, because for 10k years they don't die unless killed (immortal usually refer to not die from age only, but wc made sure to also mention they were immune to disease)
-forsaken were presented in wc3 having other units by banshee sacrificing themselves to possess them, that's not an unlimited resource, exact opposite they are extremely limited resource, and that was shown in-game btw in wow with Blackthorn rogue followers and Ogres who rebelled on Sylvanas later

- - - Updated - - -

Have I missed anything out?

yes my point -.-, i talk about nelf going to wow, not their 16+ years in wow
if we going to talk about wow, nelf should be very low population after Sylvanas genocide against them, right beside belfs (alliance tried genocide on them, twice), goblins of kezan, forsaken and darkspear trolls, all those races survived genocide by enemy faction (belf twice, belf really got it hard) so their numbers should be very low
U can add gnomes to that list but gnomes basically f8cked themselves up

[sillag]

man i just feel sorry for u at this point. none of this matters you have wasted your time on this and the other 100 essays about arcane night elves you have written. night elves are the nature elves and blizz are never gonna write them as arcane elves because they now have 3 more fitting types of elf for any arcane elf stories they feel like telling. ur amassed anecdotes and examples are meaningless in the face of blizzard's rushed and imagination-free writing.

everyone in wow has their niche and the writers are too absolutely shit at their jobs to deviate from that. so ur gonna get stories about honorable humans, savage orcs, nature loving night elves and arcane loving nightborne until this game mercifully fucking dies in 100 years time. the best thing u can hope for is when they get around to making a new night elf city or town they will have a mage standing around somewhere. the highborne night elf mage that no one remembers the name of and never does anything of significance because everyone understands that in blizzard's eyes night elves are the nature elf race and mages are secondary to that theming.

tbh dude just make ur own fantasy universe with arcane nature elves and make a blog or something about it. it will be a significantly better use of ur creative energy. this is just u repeatedly throwing urself at blizzard's 500ft high wall of shitty and neglected lore. u need to stop for ur own good.

[Mace]

Thanks for the sympathy Sillag. I have come to realise blizzard isn't DnD - they don't do elves based on "oh these are Nature elves" (night elves), and "these are arcane elves" (blood elves) .. i's not how wow races work thankfully, wow copies enough from pop fic glad this wasn't one of them, they at least make an effort to mix things up and do things interesting with variation. Should we wait for elemental elves, death elves, chaos elves, light elves to be introduced as full races then just to justify the position of night elves as nature elves? Ofc not. How they've gone about it having the elf factions as actual races with multiple focuses and aspects is far better, they feel more realistic as a people group and this is one of the things I liked most about the Warcraft races.

While I understand some players like yourself see the forest elf aspect of Night elves, and think that they are only nature elves, I get it, I understand how too, and it's why I made this topic, to show all the night elf lore on their arcane side too. You see even the Nightborne race which is a night elf sub race that only focuses on the arcane side (many allied races focus heavily on one thing), but they're not the only indicator of far more to the Night elves than nature elves. You see mention of all the Highborne, Moonguard, Moon Priests, the demon hunter night elves and their significance and prominence, while I appreciate the effort you took to write the couple of paragraphs to point out how pointless my topic is, this isn't the case.

The whole point of me writing this topic was to show you these sides, show the bigger picture that went beyond the levelling experience and the perception of the night elves repeated playing of it might lend to this mis understanding of them... incase you didn't know and ironcially, it well, turns out your response proves exactly why this was not a waste of time (only in regard to this, in the grand scheme of real life.

Now you've aken the time to write a response because you feel sorry for me, I really urge you to take the time to read what I wrote? You may find it the information quite useful in showing you the many other aspects to the Night elves and how large a role they've played in the race overall. Funnily enough do you also notice that every race has multiple aspects to them? In fact only allied races which aren't core races but sub-races/factions of core races that seem to mainly focus on one thing. Have a think, you will notice every core race has 2-4 or 5 major things about them. Blizz doesn't do 1 trick ponies for its races.

You are right that I should make my own fantasy, etc, however I would point out this is exactly what the game was designed for you to do. MAke your own fantasy, each race is provided with several key things, and you can choose which one you want to base your character on. For Night elves the key things are nature (seen via the forests and druids), the arcane (seen by the Highborne, pre-sundering lore, and current one), the fel via the Illidari (demon hunters and possibly incoming warlocks), female Amazonian warrior /priest (seen by the Order of Elune, the Moon Priestesses, Sentinels/Wardens/Huntresses etc). So which ever one you like the most you can make up your own fantasy.

Night elves aren't given a strong fantasy as death magic wielders or undead, though you can be one and carve out your fantasy from that. They have none for the shaman class, as shamanism is not via their identity. Night elves don't rely on elemental spirits to do things or wield the elements, those versed in the arcane actually do that via the arcane (fire and frost mage are advanced powerful elemental magic that is derived from the arcane not the elements). It is conceivable that Elves will have access to the shaman class opening possible fantasies, but it will likely be via the arcane. As elven arcane wielders can summon elementals and use them - however once that happens, there is nothing stopping you from taking your elven arcane shaman and following the shamanistic philosophies seen in the tauren/troll/orcs rather than purely from the arcane perspective.

You have that flexible, but this is by design. The story and lore of the races is there to give you a powerful vision of how to play.

Every race doesn't have to be every class, because your fantasy can be class based or race based. Yes there is a difference, class based you base the fantasy on the class, so if it is shaman, you will go for a race that has shamanistic values in the way that you like the most (many races have slight variations), if you go via race, then you will pick a race that you like the most and adopt one of its class identities to play as. Should blizzard open up more class identities, you can opt to go for them, they may have a lot of meaning, or hardly any meaning (like orc mages). But choice is yours.

Finally @sillag I don't hate you at all. You've taken the time to respond, from your point of view. Where I haven't agreed entirely I hope my post has made clear and why, and it's not out of hate or not liking you cos you don't agree with me 100% or anything like that, it's just to bring more clarity and truth.

[Syegfryed]

-what made them lose 'more' than rest of alliance and horde?

the war was literally in their home, they used more resources and more manpower

how did they lose more when they were involved in last months of campaign vs ppl who were fighting BL at least months longer?

horde and alliance were not fighting for months as far i know, and again, those numbers are always tricky

-at least show them like ancients walking in their cities, not flat out hostile?

a lot of then do, i see a lot of then nelf aligned doing quests in ashenvale and azshara by example

same for chimeras, who are showing zero relation to nelf anymore in wow

it was always a bit nonsense from the start anyway, this stuff is of little importance, maybe the magic they had to control then is over, who know

-1 war in over 10k years won't reduce them that much

a big war do, if you don't put again the losses

-u just talked about war of shifting sands, and it had lot of men awake, not all men slept, they had shifts, in fact did Fandral ever sleep for example, and he is 2nd best druid

this don't mean they were doing a lot of little elves

long lives races don't have children often, then barely have children

-yes but they should had massive numbers

if you don't reproduce, you can't have massive numbers

because for 10k years they don't die unless killed (immortal usually refer to not die from age only, but wc made sure to also mention they were immune to disease)

a hundred of immortals in 10k years still is a hundred

war happens, people get killed, numbers are not replenished

-forsaken were presented in wc3 having other units by banshee sacrificing themselves to possess them, that's not an unlimited resource, exact opposite they are extremely limited resource, and that was shown in-game btw in wow with Blackthorn rogue followers and Ogres who rebelled on Sylvanas later

im talking about things like gargoyles, nerubians, those statues and others

[Super Dickmann]

I like how we're down to different Horde posters arguing about night elf power levels. Can confirm, am one.

[Mace]

the war was literally in their home, they used more resources and more manpower


horde and alliance were not fighting for months as far i know, and again, those numbers are always tricky

a lot of then do, i see a lot of then nelf aligned doing quests in ashenvale and azshara by example


it was always a bit nonsense from the start anyway, this stuff is of little importance, maybe the magic they had to control then is over, who know



a big war do, if you don't put again the losses



this don't mean they were doing a lot of little elves

long lives races don't have children often, then barely have children


if you don't reproduce, you can't have massive numbers



a hundred of immortals in 10k years still is a hundred

war happens, people get killed, numbers are not replenished


im talking about things like gargoyles, nerubians, those statues and others

@SuperDickman and I'm leaning towards Syegfryed on this one. Surprising me, usually I tend to agree more with Sam, but not in this instance.

From the information we have so far, the Night elves are not painted as a thriving civilization or society in the long vigil. (Indeed the civilizaiton is dead, the society for that period is mission orientated - it is not normal living even though it becomes the norm because of its length, it's still not normal living). However we shouldn't forget they are a an empowered immortal race, even though they're not using all the power available to them during this period - which explains why they can achieve much with lesser numbers, they are not on the same level as they are currently in WoW because of having lost immortality , the empowerment from Nordrassil and never using the arcane power of the Well of Eternity for magic to aid them or rebuild, since the Sundering.

In Wc3 and earlier during the long vigil it is different. Thalassian elves, in contrast build a thriving civilization in the 7,000 years since the exile, Night elves of the long vigil group always struck me as a military and nature construction posse totally dedicated to the mission of their new reality - I would imagine partly out of guilt partly, as well as taking ownership of their responsibility that the ravaged state o f the world is their doing, hatred oft he demons for destroying their wondrous civilization and their benevolent nature/character which still remains the same despite the new mandate - this is where their deep care for the world and protecting Azeroth stems from. It is why some who are soft become hard, etc etc I won't go into a full soci para psycho analysis - I really don't have enough data.


Bottom line we don't know how many they were or are, we just know it is a fraction of what it was in the pre-sundering era, and it's far smaller than what you would expect of a group of people that has lived for 10,000 years, but the unique circumstance of the Long Vigil mission, the extenuating circumstances rather fall in line to this.

It would have been the night elves that would have taken the brunt of the full invasion of the legion in WC3, the demons flood Norhtern Kalimdor..Felwood is in its condition because of that, we see the effects in Ashenvale too in classic - night elves would have been the larger force than the remnant of the horde and alliance who would have arrived on Kalimdor. The brunt of the attack and demonic push to Mount Hyjal would have had the night elves bearing the largest responsible.

Even without precise numbers, the lore does give us some sort of context to base some of these assertions. We may not know how many they were, but we know they didn't grow anywhere near as much during 10k years as they could, and they had the highest casualties from the demons invasion on Kalimdor.

[Beloren]

The way I see it Mace is that, from a lore point of view, the blood elves are this way with the arcane because of the Night elves, elven arcane by lore comes from the night elves, and the blood elves have a variation of that, which is why when we see a night elven civilization in suramar with the nightborne, it reminds us a lot of the blood elves.

Current Darnassian society of has many other bits to it than the arcane. And the blood elven society isn't identical to the Highborne and pre-sundering night elf society, when you add the order of Elune it alreayd is different, add the druids and the night elven nature obsession and it's even more different. Night elves and blood elves only share arcane obsession - and the blood elves have that from their night elven roots.

Those who don't see this don't know lore, and you shouldn't waste your time trying to explain this after a mammoth original post. It covers and summarises well what we see in the race for those who doubt.

Night elves as a race aren't many, but a lrger number of them focus more on nature or Elune than they do the arcane, however some still do focus on the arcane a lot, and they're as good as any blood elf, probably would be better if youfactor in knowledge and experience, but hey, something called drive and determination is a huge factor and this blood elves have more of, so when it comes to vs battles, I'll back the more determined party. Soz.

If the night elven arcane users were to rebuild a city, I suspect it would be as amazing as they once wer ein the pre-sundering era, this shouldn't surprise anyone, I don't view it as stepping on anyone's toes, simply because I think blizzard has a larger scope for what a race means and represents and where its identity lies. I agree it's not divided into these trolls are arcane trolls and those are nature trolls, or these ones are Paku trolls, and these ones are Gonk trolls - within all trolls you have nature lovesr, paku followers, gonk followers etc.

To me blood elves are distinct not because they wield the arcane and night elves don't, the lore has shown this clearly not to be the case, but because blood elves look different, have a different and distinct history since becoming high elves. their society is more a coheisve whole similar to the humans than it is to the night elves who seem more a very segregated bunch that are thrown together - but that's because their story has their various different orders living very separate lives.. it just makes them interesting. Arcane is far more prevalent in blood elf society, but this doesn't make arcane in night elf society meaningless, insignificant or irrelevant - I agree it is a core part of the race, but not of its playable society. Amongst it's Highborne it's as core, if nto more core than it is in blood elf society, but then shouldn't the comparison of the Kaldorei highborne be made to the blood elf Magister organisation rather than the blood elf society?


The Nightborne really are a display of the Kaldorei Highborne and pre-sundering civilziation, and because they exist in game everyone interested in the lore can see it. I mean sure if they get the wrong idea it may come to mean something totally different from what it actaully is, you see how 1 track minded wow fans are, a nd they will carry an erorr through till it becomes a fact.. but who cares right? None of this is actually real, and so the original material is quite open to change, it's jsut a matter of what fans like about then and now.

Bottom line is ou have your arcane night elves, and there is an arcane society amognst the Night elves, if you get to move in with the Nightborne, merge with them, or get your own city and be the original blue version, good for you, if you don't, would it make a difference? After seeing Surmar you now have a reliable picture of what Highborne community and night elf arcane centred society would look like, and you have the Farondis in Azsuna as a model of the character they could have, while the naga present the other extreme of the spectrum. So you can choose.

ultimately the game allows you to play what you like mosts, and have in your head, so if you're an arcane night elf, you're going to be upset or find it ridiculous that peoplwill tell you your race isn't arcane adept or capable seeing you know your history and they're talking out of their arses. Why bother with them? Wasn't it you that pointed out when you meet them on the battlefield and nuke their arses, they can sit down and tell you that you're not magical or arcane as they run to their corpses.

Don't let anyone tell you who you can or cannot be. You decide !

[eurojust]

you said right, they had


they were not that much either, most of the things you see in the campaign are not canon number and mostly done to have a fair number of units among all factions, after the third war their numbers decrease drastically, you also have to remember they were not a very populous race, not much births, typical of a long lived race with the man mostly sleeping.

Same thing with the forsaken having lots of lots of undead stuff, but then its just some abominations

in frozen throne campaign i think you follow Maiev no? there isn't much about other animals regardless.

The point is, the elves were never that much super potency that people imagine off, they had quality, not numbers, remember how they got streamrolled by a single orc clan, when you lost numbers in the conflict and quality losing power, you kind get behind

They were their own faction in wc3, hence why people thought that they were powerful on their own.
Your single Orc clan only faced one small part of the nelf army. At the beginning of the nelf campaign Tyrande wants to attack the Orcs and take Ashenvale back. Why did she do a 180 in vanilla and instead ordered everyone to leave Ashenvale for that corrupted tree while siding with some humans at the end of the world?
As for the "non-elven units" they were definitely an important asset. If not, why did Metzen feel the need of retconning them and explain how the mountain giants, etc. were never part of the night elf army, hence why they are neutral in WoW?

[Syegfryed]

I like how we're down to different Horde posters arguing about night elf power levels. Can confirm, am one.

is what this goddamn forum section has become, everyday an elf thread to discuss elf shenanigans

They were their own faction in wc3, hence why people thought that they were powerful on their own.

their own faction was just for gameplay mechanics

Your single Orc clan only faced one small part of the nelf army. At the beginning of the nelf campaign Tyrande wants to attack the Orcs and take Ashenvale back.

an night elf army with a demigod, you can't say it was a small part cause there is no source on that

Why did she do a 180 in vanilla and instead ordered everyone to leave Ashenvale for that corrupted tree while siding with some humans at the end of the world?

everyone to leave? one of the main plot points in vanila is how the elves killed orcs left and right trying to kick then out of it

As for the "non-elven units" they were definitely an important asset. If not, why did Metzen feel the need of retconning them and explain how the mountain giants, etc. were never part of the night elf army, hence why they are neutral in WoW?

if they were so important why their role in the night elf campaign again? just be a big unit mostly important in the pvp thing.

[eurojust]

their own faction was just for gameplay mechanics

You obviously never played the game nor read the manual. They are perhaps the strongest faction with the undeads. They kicked the ass of the Legion solo during wota, Malfurion has the same power lvl of Azshara, etc. If anything it's WoW which downgraded them for gameplay mechanics

an night elf army with a demigod, you can't say it was a small part cause there is no source on that

You think the entire sentinel army was engaged and defeated? Tyrande was the leader of the sentinels and she wasn't even there. And by the way that night elf army was on the verge of defeating the Warsongs until they used the fel blood.

everyone to leave? one of the main plot points in vanila is how the elves killed orcs left and right trying to kick then out of it

Doesn't change the fact that almost everyone left for Teldrassil and Tyrande was afk while Orcs were still in Ashenvale.

if they were so important why their role in the night elf campaign again? just be a big unit mostly important in the pvp thing.

Because they are the most powerful night elf units, and even Metzen felt the need of retconning their lore to scale down the power level of the nelves in WoW.

[Syegfryed]

You obviously never played the game nor read the manual. They are perhaps the strongest faction with the undeads. They kicked the ass of the Legion solo during wota

during wota, ten fucking thousands years before the first war, it is laughable to think they would hold the same power of before, with so many losses in the war before, and last i checked they didn't win that shit easy, their empire was fucked, many sacrifices were made, and they had help from powerful beings like the wild gods and the dragonflights, and races like tauren, furbolgs and apparently Earthen, surprisingly, not present during the third war.

, Malfurion has the same power lvl of Azshara, etc. If anything it's WoW which downgraded them for gameplay mechanics

in warcraft he isn't that much powerful either, only in the books they like to make him abnormal anime lv powerful

You think the entire sentinel army was engaged and defeated? Tyrande was the leader of the sentinels and she wasn't even there. And by the way that night elf army was on the verge of defeating the Warsongs until they used the fel blood.

because they had a demigod with then controlling the forest

i didn't said it was the entire sentinel army, but is no way it was a small party since ashenvale was a huge pike of battles in the third war

Doesn't change the fact that almost everyone left for Teldrassil and Tyrande was afk while Orcs were still in Ashenvale.

totally pointless since ashenvale was never a place wehre they took residence, they just took property killing outsiders, they never "left" per say and they were always fighting there.

Because they are the most powerful night elf units, and even Metzen felt the need of retconning their lore to scale down the power level of the nelves in WoW.

Again, that is just shenanigans for the gameplay, they having stone giants around would not change a thing, you can't play then anyway.

Nelves had never such big power level you guys believe they had, not even in warcraft 3 they had that, their prime is old past, they lost their magic, immortality and numbers

[Talrath]

I like the elven lore, however reading an entire essay without knowing where its going is simply odd. Try to be direct in the first paragraph in what you want to accomplice with this post and what you want from us. Because right now I just lost interest after reading half of it.

[eurojust]

during wota, ten fucking thousands years before the first war, it is laughable to think they would hold the same power of before, with so many losses in the war before, and last i checked they didn't win that shit easy, their empire was fucked, many sacrifices were made, and they had help from powerful beings like the wild gods and the dragonflights, and races like tauren, furbolgs and apparently Earthen, surprisingly, not present during the third war.

It's still the god damn Legion, of course they weren't as powerful as what they were 10000 years ago, but it's still laughable to think that they were their own faction in wc3 because of "gameplay reasons".

in warcraft he isn't that much powerful either, only in the books they like to make him abnormal anime lv powerful

No, it's in the wc3 manual. And in wc3 he still does things like easily overpowering Illidan.

because they had a demigod with then controlling the forest

i didn't said it was the entire sentinel army, but is no way it was a small party since ashenvale was a huge pike of battles in the third war

Cenarius was roaming around, and it took fel Orcs to defeat them. I'm not the one drawing conclusions because of one battle lost. I can use the same logic when Tyrande destroyed Orcs and Humans at the beginning of the nelf campaign.

totally pointless since ashenvale was never a place wehre they took residence, they just took property killing outsiders, they never "left" per say and they were always fighting there.

It was always their main residence. The entire purpose of the Sentinels is to defend Ashenvale.

Again, that is just shenanigans for the gameplay, they having stone giants around would not change a thing, you can't play then anyway.

It's not shenanigans for the gameplay. You got 0 evidence to back this up. It's like saying that Wyrms, DKs, Tauren, Trolls etc. are shenanigans for gameplay.

Nelves had never such big power level you guys believe they had, not even in warcraft 3 they had that, their prime is old past, they lost their magic, immortality and numbers

You think Horde composed of Orcs refugees who got their ass kicked by a human kingdom, Tauren on the verge of extermination and a small tribe of Troll refugees had big power level?

[Tuor]

You think Horde composed of Orcs refugees who got their ass kicked by a human kingdom, Tauren on the verge of extermination and a small tribe of Troll refugees had big power level?

Well, i don't like it, since i've always played a Nelf main, but the truth is that Horde minority somehow managed to kick the NElf asses out of Ashenvale and they even assaulted Darkshore.

EDIT:
Is more then obvious that in the last years Blizzard has been favoring the horde. Alliance already lost Theramore, the Exodar and Teldrassil, now look at the horde.

[ravenmoon]

Well, i don't like it, since i've always played a Nelf main, but the truth is that Horde minority somehow managed to kick the NElf asses out of Ashenvale and they even assaulted Darkshore.

EDIT:
Is more then obvious that in the last years Blizzard has been favoring the horde. Alliance already lost Theramore, the Exodar and Teldrassil, now look at the horde.

There is much more to it than that. They literally raped them through wow. Their story has been tragic, fighting great battles and losing so much, and while a remnatn survives, in wow however nothing great happened.

At least after the sundering, the long vigil group got their immortality restored and made great strides in nature like they had in the arcane before the sundering. They were a lot of positives.

However end of WC3, they lose their immortality and it's been downhill ever since. Everytime up against he horde htis supposedly great race, with 10k years of experinece loses out all the time, needs help all the time

The worse thing about it is the manner. I can accept the results of wow for the Night elves, but not the manner of them. In cata, the horde walked far too easily over them, the horde could have had all the vicotries it has in the quests without making the night elves look so rubbish - this is what was terrible.

Whether sentinel, druid etc, these are 10 k year old ancients with a pheonmenal amount of mastery and experience, as well as super human skill , magical sensitivity and ability, yet such a pathetic showing - the horde should have ben very lucky to be able to do what they did, not shown off as super saiyan against the night elves, this is what was bad. I dont care if the Azshara mages were novices and outdated returnees to magecraft after 10k years break, why didn't we see a Shen'dralar in there doing something incredible? Why didn't we see the night elf captians iaround the Moosh'ran rampart nearly wipe out the horde only for their opponent to get a lucky break and snatch vicotry??


Why not? Because of real bias in the story, this is why the night elves don't just lose, but lose badly.

[Beloren]

Well, i don't like it, since i've always played a Nelf main, but the truth is that Horde minority somehow managed to kick the NElf asses out of Ashenvale and they even assaulted Darkshore.

EDIT:
Is more then obvious that in the last years Blizzard has been favoring the horde. Alliance already lost Theramore, the Exodar and Teldrassil, now look at the horde.

It's a story, to be honest it doesn't mean much who has what now as that would change again. The night elves may have lost Teldrassil, but what if later they gain the whole broken isles including Suramar?

Theramore may have been lost, but what if Dalaran becomes Alliance again?

Void elves and High elves are exiles now, but what if tomorrow they gain Silvermoon for the next 15 years?


Should the developers not be allowed to make such decisions? Granted, the alliance has had a lot of bad news and power nerfs, but waht do those things actually mean? You the player are still able to go toe to toe with the horde, and tomorrow it might be the horde losing a lot of stuff. The horde has lost 3 Warchiefs now, and no longer has the title. It's just story man.

If you are jealous of what the horde has, join it right? Don't like it because trolls and orcs are ugly and savage right? That's why you have blood elves and nightborne. Horde not for you? Fair enough, do you think the alliance won't get anything good?

You and the OP as NElf fans should know better. Let's look at the NElves the OP has gone to such great lengths to outline the "full" picture.

1. Best Civilizaton of the Azeroth born races
2. Greatest arcane mastery - even curently through groups like the Shen'dralar and Moonguard
3, Greatest nature mastery - through the druids
4. Greatest fel mastery - through the demon hunters
5. Immortality
6. Most successful army amongst the races (they spearheaded the Legion's first ever defeat when the majority of the current races didn't exist)
7. Race attributed with the greatest intelligence biologically (their magic users when amplified by the arcane would in theory be more intelligent than blood elves)


THis is a littany of excellence that has been a part of the night elves for 15,000 years of their history. It's only in the last 20 years, since WC3, that they've been nerfed
1. Lost forests, lost all their cities
2. Despite arcane mastery, haven't been able to do much with it
3. Despite nature mastery, struggled with chalelnges like the dream
4. Fel mastery succeeded in its main objective in legion
5. Lost immortality
6. Lost their first major battle EVER in the WoT
7. Those not on enhanced by the arcane aren't as intelligent as blood elves or gnomes/goblins -at least on average


Considering all their history, the night elves were due a sequence of losses , hard times and low points - it's just story man, it seems they've been hit on a lot in the story we played, they have been, I'll grant you that, but they have so much more going for them that's been unbelievable good, really the best of the races.

What do you think would be the case if the night elves still had most of what they lost? Nothing - you'd still have to fight horde and you still won't roflstomt hem. The Night elves at the height of their power weren't roflstomping anyone, the Queen with the Legion army and the power of the Well got beaten. The Night elves still arcane empowered, immortal beat their queen and the invading army and weren't super saiyan - we know they took extinction level losses.

My point? All those things are just story cavier. A lowly race is able to pull as much off as the mighty Night e lves. So what if they're low atm, and have lost a lot and aren't OP? It makes no difference, that's just the story, it went, it most likely will come again, and if it didn't, well you have bragging rights on the past.

[Tuor]

There is much more to it than that. They literally raped them through wow. Their story has been tragic, fighting great battles and losing so much, and while a remnatn survives, in wow however nothing great happened.

At least after the sundering, the long vigil group got their immortality restored and made great strides in nature like they had in the arcane before the sundering. They were a lot of positives.

However end of WC3, they lose their immortality and it's been downhill ever since. Everytime up against he horde htis supposedly great race, with 10k years of experinece loses out all the time, needs help all the time

The worse thing about it is the manner. I can accept the results of wow for the Night elves, but not the manner of them. In cata, the horde walked far too easily over them, the horde could have had all the vicotries it has in the quests without making the night elves look so rubbish - this is what was terrible.

Whether sentinel, druid etc, these are 10 k year old ancients with a pheonmenal amount of mastery and experience, as well as super human skill , magical sensitivity and ability, yet such a pathetic showing - the horde should have ben very lucky to be able to do what they did, not shown off as super saiyan against the night elves, this is what was bad. I dont care if the Azshara mages were novices and outdated returnees to magecraft after 10k years break, why didn't we see a Shen'dralar in there doing something incredible? Why didn't we see the night elf captians iaround the Moosh'ran rampart nearly wipe out the horde only for their opponent to get a lucky break and snatch vicotry??


Why not? Because of real bias in the story, this is why the night elves don't just lose, but lose badly.

And my perspective about Teldrassil only confirms the bias of Blizzard towards Aliance, i think they don't even plan to return it to the NElfs, they might create a BG there and turn it in a contested area. So, the perspectives for NElfs aren't good, it just doesn't make any sense how 10kyo creatures get their ass kicked so often.

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@EnigmAddict yes its just story, that's all WoW is about, but the bias on horde has been more then obvious at least since cata. The Alliance lore is mostly around Humans and if you look at horde they actually have splited the lore betwin Orcs and Undead, but Alliance is just about Humans.

[Beloren]

And my perspective about Teldrassil only confirms the bias of Blizzard towards Aliance, i think they don't even plan to return it to the NElfs, they might create a BG there and turn it in a contested area. So, the perspectives for NElfs aren't good, it just doesn't make any sense how 10kyo creatures get their ass kicked so often.

I don't get you guys, burnt out Teldrassil, would be awesome as a new zone, a complete redeisn. In the original movie take, Teldrassil has many Night elf towns and villages on it, along its trunk on the way to its crown - would be lovely to go through that as a new high level zone.

Wouldn't you rather the night elves got a cool new home and capital city? A city like Suramar or Zin'Azsahri, surrounded by garden forest like Val'sharah, with a temple like the Cathedral of eternal night? - rather than restoring boring Teldrassil with no updates?

Old teldrassil is still available anyway to revisit 1000 times in levelling - you guys can be unreal sometimes, if you truly want progress, look forward for better things.

I want an updated SIlvermoon, better than what I original had in TBc, if they destroyed Silvermoon, I'd want a greater and bigger city on say Quel'danas, wouldn't you.?

[Tuor]

Wouldn't you rather the night elves got a cool new home and capital city? A city like Suramar or Zin'Azsahri, surrounded by garden forest like Val'sharah, with a temple like the Cathedral of eternal night? - rather than restoring boring Teldrassil with no updates?

No.

I want an updated SIlvermoon, better than what I original had in TBc, if they destroyed Silvermoon, I'd want a greater and bigger city on say Quel'danas, wouldn't you.?

Wipe them aswell, if Alliance already lost 2 main cities in kalimdor, it makes sense Blizzard to wipe both Silvermon and Undercity.

[Syegfryed]

It's still the god damn Legion, of course they weren't as powerful as what they were 10000 years ago, but it's still laughable to think that they were their own faction in wc3 because of "gameplay reasons".

"the damn legion" who didn't come in full force like now, they came mostly in portals and that can diminish your numbers.

they were not that big, they being "their own faction" don't mean they were more powerful than alliance and horde together like you guys like to preach

No, it's in the wc3 manual. And in wc3 he still does things like easily overpowering Illidan.

still not nearly as powerful as you like to think, if he was, he would have streamrolled everything when we play with him, he was just a hero unit like any other else, not abnormally stronger, that only came later.

Cenarius was roaming around, and it took fel Orcs to defeat them. I'm not the one drawing conclusions because of one battle lost. I can use the same logic when Tyrande destroyed Orcs and Humans at the beginning of the nelf campaign.

Only Grom was necessary to defeat Cenarius, the warsong destroyed the sentinels, before and after the demonblood, it is explained in the chronicles their fight, is not in a small scale, she didn't "destroyed", she killed some of then who were wandering gathering resources

It was always their main residence. The entire purpose of the Sentinels is to defend Ashenvale.

It was Hyjal, you know, the main ehart of the night elf residence, where the old tree was, and where Archimonde went.

It's not shenanigans for the gameplay. You got 0 evidence to back this up. It's like saying that Wyrms, DKs, Tauren, Trolls etc. are shenanigans for gameplay.

They were units for the sake of gameplay, Forsakens don't have wyrms, Forsakens don't have DKs, they just appear in the pvp thing

im saying is stone giants still afilliated to the night elves would change nothing in a long run, they were creeps, mobs, unimportant as siege units

this is what is writen in his description:

Benevolent and solitary by nature, the mountain giants have awakened to find that the tranquil world they once helped to shape has become a hectic battlefield of fire and sorrow. Now the mountain giants have pledged their courage and strength to the night elves' cause -- and stand ready to banish the last remnants of the Burning Legion from the world

They, by being benevolent and solitary, only came to help the night elves against the Legion, after the danger is gone, there is no sense for then to keep following the night elves, in their mad drive killing orcs.

You think Horde composed of Orcs refugees who got their ass kicked by a human kingdom, Tauren on the verge of extermination and a small tribe of Troll refugees had big power level?

Your facts are a bit out of place here, the horde was so populous that Blackmoore was planing to overtake the alliance using it, they didn't got their "ass kicked by a human kingdom" even lordaeron had problems with the blackrock alone, no one ever captured the warsong.

Tauren were not in the verge of extermination, only Cairne Clan, and while the trolls were indeed small, all 3 together made a big power lv yes.

the horde as a whole is a war machine, elves are not, their prime was 10 thousands ago