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

[DemonHunter18]

In WC3, outside of the very first mission where they ambush a supply camp, they did nothing but get their asses kicked till they awoke the Druids.

well that was the mission and Grom is a very good leader.

later on, they said that the creatures (Night Elves) and Cenarius were pressing them hard, not just Cenarius.

[darkoms]

In WC3, outside of the very first mission where they ambush a supply camp, they did nothing but get their asses kicked till they awoke the Druids.

- - - Updated - - -



Jarod and Kur'Talos were not exemplary warriors. They were leaders.

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

Kur'Talos and Jarod were excellent warriors. There was also Varo'then, who seemed not to be inferior to Broxigar during their brief duel.

[Dr Assbandit]

they are annoying asf.

did you see that Darkshore cinematic???

that was soo cringy.

That's what happens when they were badass but Blizzard writers shat on them repeatedly and now people think it's a joke when there are attempts even though those attempts are lacking.

[DemonHunter18]

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.

tbf Illidan was outnumbered.

Maiev did say that she could kill him in an instant with Blink ability though.

- - - Updated - - -

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?

they gained immortality from the Well.

they are not naturally immortal.

[Varodoc]

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

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

The first three are basically three variations of the same race: Thalassian Elf. Both Void Elves and High Elves still consider Silvermoon their home too.

[DemonHunter18]

The first three are basically three variations of the same race: Thalassian Elf. Both Void Elves and High Elves still consider Silvermoon their home too.

Ik but there are just so many variants.

just keep it simple.

it doesn't bother me much but damn, it wouldn't surprise me if there are Light Elves as well.

[LordVargK]

I mean Warcraft has a stereotypical fantasy setting as in Elves are almost immortal, most skilled rangers, nimble, prefer dexterity over pure strength, are "the nature guys" as living in trees and such. To assume that Elves also inherit other stereotypical attributes is not a long shot. And other stereotypical attributes are: low population number, masters of combat, potent magic users. While (arcane) magic is banned among the Nightelves, I think it is fair to assume that one nightelf is worth 10 humans in combat. At least in guerilla combat, which considering Night elves live in woods is probably their dominant way of fighting.

You quoted grom, but let me give you another example of Warcraft lore: The highelves, after being exiled by Malfurion, established a holdout in the northern kingdoms and - to quote the wiki - "were able to defeat Amani warbands that outnumbered them ten to one". And these were mana-addicted, mostly starved elves utilizing the last of their magic ressources. Think of the junkies in Suramar.

It's pretty fair to assume, that Nightelves get an unfair treatment by Blizzards writers. They severly gut their powers in favor of the plot. But that is the same with all of the Alliance's races, which are either ignored or "humanized". Come to think of it: Orcs, Undead and Trolls are also kinda "humanized": They are as strong as humans, behave like them (albeit primitive humans) and Undead being, well undead, is brought up maybe one or two times when fitting, but mostly they are just as strong as humans are and behave no different from them (which I guess made sense in Vanilla, but not after they had 20 years to accept their new life).
There are no real power differences between races anymore. Orcs are as strong as humans, Taurens as strong (or weaker) than orcs. The only exceptions are the really small races (Gnomes, Goblins and now Vulpera) which have been written into the tinker role.

But to further prove my point: Look at the societies Blizzard created for every race. They are exceptionless Aristocraties or even (in case of humans) Monarchies. Which makes them very similar to Humans. Goblins could have no Government or Leadership at all. They are pure capitalists in their most extreme form. Government only hinders Capitalism (in a for human socienty benefitting way), but Goblins would not care about that. But they still have a leader. Gnomes could be technocratic, but no, they have one Leader. Undead do not need any form of government at all. They are dead, why should they care about anything other than their own free will and give up their freedom in favour of society? But no, they have/had a Queen.

What I'm saying is: Blizzard writes human stories. And then there are small/big humans, purple/green/blue humans, humans with long ears or horns and dead/void humans. To argue that Nightelves are not portrayed the way they were in WC3 is correct, but also meaningless, because every race's identity got changed/removed in the transitioning from WC3 to WoW.

[Varodoc]

Ik but there are just so many variants.

just keep it simple.

it doesn't bother me much but damn, it wouldn't surprise me if there are Light Elves as well.

Technically there are. Lady Liadrin and the Golden-eyed blood elf basically serve as foil for the Void elves, they are infused with the power of the Sunwell, more so than every other Thalassian.

[Kyphael]

Sounds like Grom was either infatuated and Orc females are lousy by comparison, or night elves have been subsequently written as a shell of their former selves.

[DemonHunter18]

Technically there are. Lady Liadrin and the Golden-eyed blood elf basically serve as foil for the Void elves, they are infused with the power of the Sunwell, more so than every other Thalassian.

yeah but they didn't change into yellow shining star like Void Elves turned dark.

[Feanoro]

Metzen created them to be hardcore, directly comparing them to predators like great cats, beautiful, majestic, and won't blink at tearing your damn throat out. Metzen was less and less involved as WoW progressed, stepping away almost entirely by Cata. Along came Afrasiabi with his "RAWR KILL SHIT WICKED GUITAR SOLO BRAINLESS THUGS" vision of the Horde, and the Night Elves were promptly worfed hard to fulfill that "vision".

The Grom quote was supposed to indicate one of the greatest warriors in the setting regarded the Sentinels with awe and some fear, needing to resort to the fel blood to win again.

[Eggroll]

Despite being a treehugger fan, I've never read this quote before. Mind you, I've never played the Warcraft games or read any novel.

Still, we should remember they are decendants of trolls, they go by "You chop my tree, I chop your head."

The thing is, Blizzard devs have a massive hate boner on nelves. I believe they all have the minds of edgy teenagers and the nelves are simply "too gay" and feminine aka "uncool". It's a female society, edgy teenage boys can't handle that. If it's female it must be weak - unless teenage boy has a crush on it.

- - - Updated - - -

Metzen created them to be hardcore, directly comparing them to predators like great cats, beautiful, majestic, and won't blink at tearing your damn throat out. Metzen was less and less involved as WoW progressed, stepping away almost entirely by Cata. Along came Afrasiabi with his "RAWR KILL SHIT WICKED GUITAR SOLO BRAINLESS THUGS" vision of the Horde, and the Night Elves were promptly worfed hard to fulfill that "vision".

The Grom quote was supposed to indicate one of the greatest warriors in the setting regarded the Sentinels with awe and some fear, needing to resort to the fel blood to win again.

Interesting what you pointed out with the cats. The original models, especially the females had feline eyes, hinting at their cat-like nature. The new models eyes are just normal human eyes - boring.

[Toppy]

Sounds like Grom was either infatuated and Orc females are lousy by comparison, or night elves have been subsequently written as a shell of their former selves.

Subsequently in the very same game at the onset of their own campaign?

[Plehnard]

Well this was them in the Warcraft3 art book:

Sadly they got downgraded a lot with wow.

PS.:
Grom did not win against them until he got that demon blood otherwise he would have lost.

[Toppy]

Well this was them in the Warcraft3 art book:

Sadly they got downgraded a lot with wow.

PS.:
Grom did not win against them until he got that demon blood otherwise he would have lost.

Correction.
He won against them until Cenarious got involved. That is until a highly magical demigod got involved. As well as four different groups of sentinels. Against the one clan of orcs.

They were not portrayed as "Savage warriors" in WC3. The only instance of savagery rests on Grom's words and their allies and druids.

Mind you, these would be the same Orcs that the humans fought in WC1 and 2, and were also beaten back again by humans and other normal orcs soon after.

[darkoms]

Well this was them in the Warcraft3 art book:

Sadly they got downgraded a lot with wow.

PS.:
Grom did not win against them until he got that demon blood otherwise he would have lost.

He would have lost because of Cenarius and the army of the forest, not because of wild womens

[Kyphael]

Subsequently in the very same game at the onset of their own campaign?

Yikes, I never played Warcraft III but that says more about it than it does WoW's treatment of night elf lore.

[Yarathir]

If you are anything remotely approaching a Night Elf fan and you're hoping things will improve? Perish the thought for your own good. When they're not neutral questgivers, they're just glorified punching bags to make the Horde or any other enemy look strong. They're designated jobbers.

People were upset over it in Mists of Pandaria, when a sub-100 year old human king raised in a gladiatorial arena had to teach a 10.000+ year old Priestess of the Moon about the lofty concept of 'patience', and by all means, Darkshore, 8.1 was supposed to be spun as a high point for night elves, sort of a redemption after being nothing but jobbers for the past few years.

What did this high point look like? Night elves fighting to regain their own territory, nearly losing until their leader undergoes a supposed super risky le epic anime powerup, after which she hunts down Nathanos, manages to kill one (1) val'kyr with the help of the strongest archdruid while Nathanos mocks her and flies off with a bunch of newly raised undead soldier fodder for Sylvanas in the form of a bunch of dark rangers and a dark warden who were totally not mindcontrolled but made the very natural 1 second heel-turn choice to serve the person that nearly wiped out their people.

I only remember people saying that Tyrande was better in WC3 than in WoW.

I don't remember people saying Night Elves are the greatest warriors on Azeroth or something.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Even Ghostcrawler himself said "I've always been partial to orcs. Also liked the nelfs when they were fierce.".

[Toppy]

Yikes, I never played Warcraft III but that says more about it than it does WoW's treatment of night elf lore.

That's my point.

The whole standard of them being these savage perfect warriors is Grom's quote. Its not in the game. Its not even in the lore. The sentinels themselves from the get go were portrayed as skilled, mostly archers, well trained and prone to careful planning. They looked savage and that was about it. Even their way of speaking was calm and thoughtful. No shouting, no overt anger: just careful, calm talking and some rather held back threats.

- - - Updated - - -

If you are anything remotely approaching a Night Elf fan and you're hoping things will improve? Perish the thought for your own good. When they're not neutral questgivers, they're just glorified punching bags to make the Horde or any other enemy look strong. They're designated jobbers.

People were upset over it in Mists of Pandaria, when a sub-100 year old human king raised in a gladiatorial arena had to teach a 10.000+ year old Priestess of the Moon about the lofty concept of 'patience', and by all means, Darkshore, 8.1 was supposed to be spun as a high point for night elves, sort of a redemption after being nothing but jobbers for the past few years.

What did this high point look like? Night elves fighting to regain their own territory, nearly losing until their leader undergoes a supposed super risky le epic anime powerup, after which she hunts down Nathanos, manages to kill one (1) val'kyr with the help of the strongest archdruid while Nathanos mocks her and flies off with a bunch of newly raised undead soldier fodder for Sylvanas in the form of a bunch of dark rangers and a dark warden who were totally not mindcontrolled but made the very natural 1 second heel-turn choice to serve the person that nearly wiped out their people.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Even Ghostcrawler himself said "I've always been partial to orcs. Also liked the nelfs when they were fierce.".

If you played WC3 recently you may notice that Tyrande has a tendency to act before she thinks. Remember how she freed Illidan and then got mad that he did the exact thing everyone knew he would? Or her refusal to ally with humans even though the alternate was clearly death. Or how she blew up a bridge as she stood on it.

How about the wider aspect of the Legion invading and her armies complete failure to do any form of reconnaissance, scouting, or information gathering?

Tyrande, since WC3, has been portrayed as rather compulsive and not prone to planning.



Mind you, I wish Night Elves were portrayed more positively for sure. But I never got the "Tyrande's such a great military leader" bit when even in WC3 she wasn't portrayed as a skilled leader; the exact opposite in fact, she was prepared to throw the world away due to anger and killed her own soldiers for following their orders. Hell, leadership quiet literally was thrust upon her with no prior experience; a thing she didn't earn, and she only had one confirmed conflict under her belt: The war of the Satyr, which was itself a hot mess where the Druids seemed to have done most of the heavy lifting.

She's like Garrosh; fantastic champion, awful leader. And I wish they would do more with that. She should be like, the Alliance's trump card. She should be the one causing the members of the Horde to piss themselves in fear: not Jaina.

[Yarathir]

Despite being a treehugger fan, I've never read this quote before. Mind you, I've never played the Warcraft games or read any novel.

Still, we should remember they are decendants of trolls, they go by "You chop my tree, I chop your head."

The thing is, Blizzard devs have a massive hate boner on nelves. I believe they all have the minds of edgy teenagers and the nelves are simply "too gay" and feminine aka "uncool". It's a female society, edgy teenage boys can't handle that. If it's female it must be weak - unless teenage boy has a crush on it.

- - - Updated - - -



Interesting what you pointed out with the cats. The original models, especially the females had feline eyes, hinting at their cat-like nature. The new models eyes are just normal human eyes - boring.

Well, that's curious, considering how hard Blizzard tries to be woke nowadays, yet the one non-evil society that is dominated by female warriors first and foremost are eternally pitiable sandbags there to make the Horde look powerful time and again.

You'd think if they really wanted to sell fake female empowerment, they'd take advantage of the night elves and at least, I dunno.. make them halfway competent?