Not all night elf fans are fans for the druidic side of the night elves, and even amongst those who love that you will find great love for kaldorei lore, civilization and arcane magic fantasy we’ve been given, and they don’t all want toto switch to the horde toe experience it any more than you’d expect a draenei to switch to Lightforged to get a light fantasy - even though they’re on the same faction. In other words, a sub-race is not their to replace aspects of the core race, they’re just a side group of the core race with their own story to tell of their own group. You get to play night elves on the horde through Nightborne, their existence does not erase Highborne, night elven mages or night elven civilization and cities nor night elven legendary use and affinity of magic.
I do not appreciate my words being twisted, to me this is you saying you are incapable of argueing in good faith.
I feel like I wasted a lot if time reading everything you put in your post before this honestly
Not even trying to twist, it is 100% true… you are seeing the kaldorei civilization culture of the Legion period of the pre-sundering era, it is not blood elven, it is 100% kaldorei - , Highborne, non Highborne alike - even though the priesthood influence is absent it is still 100% kaldorei - did you read the War of the ancients novel?
That you think this is very similar to the blood elves really goes to show you how night elves and blood elves are very much alike in many areas, even though in-game they have intentionally emphasised certain aspects, but it’s more a case that they have neglected to show other sides of the night elves properly
You don’t see the ferocious, savage side of the night elves
You don’t see the dangerous side of the night elves
You don’t see the high civilization side of the night elves
You don’t see the prolific and gifted arcane using side of the night elves - these are all legendary - if you read the novels.
When you go to Suramar you get a semblance of that in the Suramar community, it might as well have been the Shen’dralar community a few thousand years back or many night elf communities around the legion invasion period of the pre-sundering era.
This is what it is.
Blood elves are ELVES - by the lore, they get the elf form NIGHT ELF - the original being is kaldorei in their language, it is humans that distinguish them by calling the first elves, night elves, adding the prefix, because the elves they know are the high /blood elf lot. This is how the story weaves it.
WE must be sensitive to this, correctly factoring this in when we consider and examine them or forge a perspective on them…
For the elves, the original is the ultimate, the greatest period is the past, all the mutations and changes that came after are not step ups, they are step downs, the night elves won the war, but they lost quite a lot. Only the night elves remain the same of race, but much of what they had is lost, of their achievements only Eldre’thalas ruins and Suramar city remain, and some of the ancient trees they managed to return. Also a couple of temples have been recovered. The Cathedral of Eternal Night and the Temple of the Moon. in person but all of the survivors experienced change… They lost a lot, but they remain and a lot of their knowledge with them (if not their civilization - but they can rebuild)
Those that became high elves, lost enhancements from the Well of Eternity and Nordrassil, it was devolution, the majority of the arcane knowledge they also lost - they tell you they lost 90% of what the night elves had, they had to build anew a lot, and they rebuilt based on the day not the night, and this is what distinguishes them from both Night elves and Nightborne, switched form Elune to Holy Light worship alone - these are the major distinctions. But the arcane affinity and proliferation, elven civilization are things they get form the night elves, but note they did their own version differently, sorta like how Dazar’alor is different form Zul’GUrub, but they are both troll even though they’ve thousands of years apart.
Shen’drlaar are also thousands of years apart from the Darnassians, the only difference between them and those in Suramar is no night well mutation, no nightwell curse - but it’s the same kaldorei culture and city living of the times they were in.
Yes you are, if you are incapable of simply calling the nighbourne the nightbourne then it is clear to me you have not even considered my arguement as serious, hell you’re not even accepting the stablished lore.
I read most of that post what you had to type up until that point and I regret it entirely because it was a lot of reading, even had responses ready to some of those things until I hit the part I quoted.
You are not going to bait me into reading more of your essays
I think sometimes what people do is think of night elves and blood elves as a part of a bigger whole of elves. and in doing so they make night elves the primitive, nature, non-magical feral side - like “early man”, “early elf” and make blood elves the advanced, sophisticated developed and arcane side - and together they complete the elves.
Nightborne presentation of the night elves in Suramar City thoroughly abused this notion as a false premise, but problem is many failed to grasp they were seeing night elven civilization via the nightborne and decided to consider them as a separate species altogether rather than what they were being shown. Those who do so typically have never read the War of the Ancients or any night elf novel, are only vaguely familiar with the story, and I mean vague, night elves are defined entirely by what they see in game and not what the lore says, the lore that informs what you see in -game.
I find it better to think of night elves as their own separate people and group they’ve got a long history, it’s full of a lot of things and it is all part of the make up, in their world it’s mostly devastation, masses of ruins in great ancient cities, , full of forests, and the night elves are the survivors of that world, fighting and chasing the demons that destroyed their cities and lands and making sacrifices to do so. In that world, eventually the demons will return and be defeated and they can carry on some of their lives again.
They will rebuild some of their cities , some will return to magic, and normal life, they haven’t really lived for nearly 10,000 years, because it is the same night elf you read in War of the ancients that’s in the forest of Kalimdor or in the city of Eldre’thalas or Suramar. And while those in Suramar city changed, it was not a total change, only a minor superficial one, mutation (like most sub-races in wow) - neither culture, nor environment changed from anything that was kaldorei or seen in the kaldorei across time and space - in fact we are told they preserved the kaldorei culture and city pristinely (i.e. perfectly), unlike the high elves who had both a cultural, physical and ideological change. away form the original kaldorei ways of living.
This doesn’t mean their aren’t similarities, the Nightborne you see in Suramar show you what many of us who read the books know (but few who don’t realise), there are lots of similarities, but there was a lot of change to, not just skin colour - but that is one, living cycles is a MASSIVE change, going from day to night - the game just doesn’t bring out how big a change this will feel, regardless if your affinities remain the same, the type of culture is different… yes it’s urban culture, but the political monarchy system was changed, There was no caste system any longer, nor gender restrictions or magical ones, especially magical segregation - they were all like equals amongst the high elves, think of a republic monarchy, a tight group, like a big family rather than global race with lots of variety and flavours. Also religion shifted, form the Moon goddess to the Sun, this has enormous cultural significance, even though it’s elven urban civilization and the way the mages are ordered is similar. Afterall you have arcanists in both, Magisters and Grand magisters etc, but all this comes form the kaldorei culture which took these things to far greater extents than the blood elves have been able to recapture - Suramar shows and proves this, and the lore says it directly.
That’s because they were all Highborne and considered themselves above the Lowborns. They were all equals and it wasn’t until TBC, where the Magisters and Blood Knights considered the Farstriders to be “backwards.” That stigma then ended with the restored Sunwell.
And we know all the Thalassian Elves descend from the Highborne, since Blizzard have made that very clear to us - otherwise, why would they have a song called “Lament of the Highborne” and the novella, “Blood of the Highborne.”
Indeed, but don’t forget there were many castes, and lowborne was never a caste, just hierarchy upon hierarchy, by the legion invasion the Highborne were the highest caste, but when Zin’Azshari was built, the priests were the highest caste. And we know at the time of the legion the priesthood caste and the Highborne caste were neck and neck in terms of esteem by the people. I would imagine that it would have been the priest caste that handed civil leadership to the Highborne caste in the first place cos we know they led the earliest period of the night elves, the study of the well of etenrity that enabled the night elves to discover the use of arcnae magic. It is likely the mage class came from the studies of the priesthood,
I would imagine it was likely male night elves, unable to become part of the all female sister hood, that would have then taken an other wise spiritual and combat use of the well and greatly expanded it to practical uses forming the mage class. most of the Highborne leadership are male and you have many more males here traditionally. I woudl imagine Azshara got the crown because of how exceptionally shew as, but remember the next in line [Xavius] to about the 17th [Darth’remar] were all male behind her. When you look at some of the other Highborne ruler we know, like Prince Farondis, Prince Totheldrinn, Lord Ravencrest (if he was Highborne), they’re all male. but it makes sense, Females had a high calling if elected tot he priesthood, and they had a formidable sentinel martial army, led by the Priestesses themselves who are arcane and divine (as well as shadow) using casters.
Anyway, in the transition to high elves for the Sunstrider group, there were many changes, people just look at arcane love and urban city and go oh …blood elves and night levs are the same here… they over look so much.
Then they look at the addiction story, have no idea of night elf addiction cos they never read, fail to notice how very different the type of addiction was.
It’s like they keep showing the differences, but some just ignore them.
But back to the Highborne - in general their worse era was when they got arrogant, but you had many like Farondis , it’s like those that stayed away from the capital and the glorious Queen were less likely to become arrogant and later addicted. They looked down on everything which is why they got addicted, all of a sudden balance didn’t matter, Elune wasn’t as revered so the humility that usually accompanies wasn’t there, to temper their power.
Kaiine here, but having to post on this Classic Toon.
The issue is that Blizzard don’t care about night elf arcane addiction. It’s irrelevant and it’s their story.
They have put that story on the Blood Elves, now I know you’ll say “but it starts with night elves.” It doesn’t matter. Blizzard aren’t linking every blood elf strength to night elves and I’ve noticed night elf fans try and do this ever since BFA.
Arcane addiction is about Blood Elves and Nightborne, that is the story that was told. Nelfs are irrelevant in that whole story, just like how they’re irrelevant in the Arcane Golem story arc. They aren’t even mentioned on the lore pages about Arcane Golems.
You’ve got to try and just stop this because it’s ridiculous. I know Nelfs were made to look weak in BFA, but that doesn’t mean you try and leach story from Blood Elves and count Blood Elf achievements as night elf achievements. That’s toxic towards the Sin’dorei fanbase.
Yes, I am a shen’dralar fan, but I will NOT stand by and have ideas leached off other races, just to make the shen’dralar feel good. That’s not what I’m about. I don’t care about feelings, I only want facts.
The fact is - we have to stop looking at blood elf stuff and making stuff up to try and give it to night elves. Focus on night elf strengths and the Ancients of the Arcane are the golden ticket that can make Shen’dralar unique. We don’t need Blood Elf achievements through lies and dishonesty to make Shen’dralar good.
You have Lady Lestharia Vashj, Princess Aszune and Grand Magistrix Elisande.
You have no evidence to suggest that the Highborne were more male than female, when we see that Highborne consisted of both in equal measure. The Highborne who demanded that the Lowborns listen to them was a female, all of Azshara’s direct servants were Highborne Females and in the main, most of the Highborne leaders of the city states employed females as their second in-commands, like Thalyssra of Suramar and Illyanna Ravenoak of Eldre’Thalas.
No. But we have no evidence to suggest males did anything but Druidism outside the relative number of people involved in certain fields.
Males crop up for night elves much more as Mages, Druids, Demon Hunters
Females pop up for Priests, Hunters and Warriors a lot more. There is mixture, quite a few female Druid characters, and mages, although we have far fewer comparative male warriors and hunter characters.
Addiction story is shown for blood elves in TBC and shown for night elves in Legion through the Nightborne. It is specifically an elven storyline linked to the night elven abuse of magic at the end of the pre-sundering era.
It doesn’t belong to any one faction. But clearly the blood elves and Nightborne have much bigger storylines around it than say Void elves, Darnassians or High elves.
Males crop up more for Druids; however Mages and Demon Hunters are all headcanon at present.
I mean, their had to have been a large plentiful of female highborne who took exile and established Quel’Thalas, because…well, obvious reasons.
And being Highborne isn’t about just being Mages. You had Highborne Warriors, who mainly were male, but Highborne Handmaidens who were female, Highborne Sorcerers who were male and female and Highborne families who were obviously men, women, boys and girls.
The Demon Hunters of the Illidari have always been a mixed bag of men and women, Night Elves and Blood Elves.
But it isn’t though.
Addiction storyline for the Blood Elves was about their loss of the Sunwell and turning to different forms of magical sustenance. It didn’t have any connection to the night elves.
Nightborne was being cut off from the Nightwell and looking at how they cope. As we saw, some Nightborne took to Azsuna and began draining the magic from the Dragons, whilst others stuck by Thalyssra’s rebellion.
So it does have more Horde leaning story arc, which is fine. Shen’dralar don’t need such an arc - we’ve got other stories that can develop where they are concerned.
Not sure how many people realise that Suramar and all the other night elf buildings, structures in the zones are Night elven first, Nightborne too.
You can’t say Suramar is Nightborne but not night eleven for example.
The lore says they kept the city pristinely. And the culture from what it was during the lm1st legion invasion - understandable as resources are limited being in a bubble which is why they eventually resort to arcane energy for food and conjured clothing which isn’t perma.
In fact , that clothing and the minor biological appearance alteration along with chronomagic developments are the only things that aren’t night eleven about them.
If they were to now build something new that wasn’t Kaldorei based then you could say this now is Nightborne , not night eleven nor both.
In contrast. Everything the high elves have in Quel’thalas is high elven, not night elven or night elven Highborne. Because they built all these things, acquired new land not formerly part or in the night elf empire and did it as high elves, not night elves.
However the arcane magic they use is all night elven. Only the blood magic and Phoenix fire magic the blood elves develop from Outland and Isle of Thunder has nothing to do with night elves.
The forestry skills as archers and rangers in the Farstriders while a high elven organisation is also tied to the night elves - as is the forest love. This is the elf race base set. It doesn’t belong to blood elves alone.
What is blood elven however and high elven is the right.
True, although one day they should tell about their few years in the Feralas forest overcoming their addiction and corruption, would be an amazing tale. Shen’dralar seem incredible just based on what they manage to achieve. Difference is they have no fan fair to it, it’s not told specifically… you just see the results or can deduce.
What I don’t like are the insistence on a very few group of players that night elves should have no civilization or magic - this is not elven, their reasoning is because blood elves have this - but blood elves who were revitalised in TBC re not mutually exclusive with night elves neither blood elves getting their revamp in their introduction or Nightborne going horde should be used as some sort of excuse to puncture or deflate night elves robbing them of the long expectation from fans or the things in their lore about them.
Night elves do do cities, they are different in some ways from blood elves
- They are nocturnal -a night city - this has some differences in ambience but also culture that would be noticeable
- Night elven cities are traditionally very green too - roof top gardens, parks and groves, lots of gardens
night elf cities are not rural shanties or caves - those or rural areas for elves, not cities for night elves - sometimes I think these people think of night elves as an entirely different species rather than just nocturnal elves that actually have
- Their scale is bigger than the blood elves and less connected and influenced by humanity - and this shows itself traditionally in how extreme they are in their arcane dedication and nature dedication - this shows in the sharp contrast between rural and urban -urban is beautifully developed on quite a scale, rural is almost like you’re in an -untouched forest by human hands.
Night elves are not going to want to have wooden towns, and a tree shanti at all in a forest they want it undisturbed…have the city on a hill fixed area - let all the elven activity happen there not disturbing the forest… better not to use wood either, trees are living after all, , they’d be beautiful because it’s their character, out of love for Elune (that’s why the temples are so gorgeous and the homes sorta mimic that standard) and replicating nature they love with stone is important too.
this is why night elven cities would be art masterpieces - whereas blood elven ones would be less artistic and likely more gilded and grand more in a human way like we see the tall buildings of Silvermoon vs those of Suramar. Silvermoon having more blocks with gold gilding, Suramar having more artistic flair, with jewels sure highlighting a greater more extreme degree of magic and accomplishment but also of nature too.
The point is, it isn’t fitting to expect huge differences between blood elves and night elves - night elves are just a lot deeper into what makes elves, elves than blood elves, their extreme focuses and contrasts are the highlight - their arcane is more extreme as seen in both the pre-sundering era and the current Highborne (which blizzard needs to show) they just do more, so is their nature love more extreme as seen in the druidic side of things, both in the long vigil and in the druids around today. their religious devotion is also far more intense, much more religious Elune language in their speech and their love devotion is easily notable there. The magic is more intense, the typical elven characteristics are more intense, compared to a more humanised blood elf, that’s less fanatical, less intense both with their nature and magic. More open and involved with other people around them - relative tot he night elf.
A New Type of Race - night elf related
What the horde belf fans are wanting night elves to be by their insistence on only the forest part, no magic and a far more of a feral/savage caste to them is not the elven type set, bush forest and shanti town would be better suited to a night elf sub-race that is more animalistic and not the night elves.
Like a race built around worgen night elves that are night elven in one form but worgen or were-elf as their main state. They can still be intelligent but mostly feral, have magical capacity but that won’t have any major focus or significance like it does for the night elves.
They will have forest/tree homes made of wood like a city in the trees like - since that pure nature love philosophy of the kaldorei druids isn’t their, nor is the arcane and civilization side that would produce new night elven marble cities their either.
this is where you carry out the fantasy, because they’re not really elf mainly, though that is their half form and heritage, you can depart more significantly from the elf race type set, fitting more into the Worgen or half-man/half animal set.
The Wereen
The Weeren are a race of half night elven, half animal people who were once night elven druids transformed into worgen and trapped in the emerald dream. During their time their they underwent many changes, gaining new were forms such as were-bear, were-cat, were-bird forms. Though cunning and highly intelligent they are feral and savage in nature, though they remember their time as elves. Many of them when in night elven form sport animal features correlating to their were-form. optional antlers, optional leaves for hair, optional gnarled branch on one forearm and hand, optional goats feet (like Sylvar and satyr) optional feathered arms) are all customisations centred around their highly nature orientated part.
Their main forms players can choose between a harpy like bird -elf, a were-bear (that the best night elven druids have learnt to shapeshift into), were-cat a form that was also discovered during the events of Pandaria (and very similar to Saberon).
They prefer living high up in gigantic trees, and have made Shaldrassil the site of their imprisonment in the emerald dream, their main home Their dominant mastery is druidism, though many have taken to other fields ranging from mage to warlock, shaman, priest, demon hunter, alongside the more dominant druid, hunter, rogue and warrior classes.
But that is boring, long term. It’s a story already told in Quel’Thalas (primarily) and was told in an action-packed way.
Meditating is not engaging. It’s boring. It’s essentially, nothing as far as in-game goes.
Overnight, I have dwelled on this and Arcane Addiction and Corruption is more told within the Blood Elf story than the Nightborne one. The latter is more about arcane withdrawal and what happens when you go without the Nightwell.
The Blood Elf story is more about over-use of the Arcane, hence Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent. It’s also about the combination of the Fel Crystals over the lands of the Blood Elves. The corruption side can also come in either overexposure to Arcane (Wretched) or overexposure to Fel (Felblood Elf / Fel Wretched.) So, all of this combined - the Arcane Addiction story arc is just so much better on the Blood Elves…it is, quintessentially part of their identity and it does nothing to the Shen’dralar story, other than being an “ommmmmmmm, let’s meditate, ommmmmmmm” story.
The story has to be move forward. We’ve got Ancients of the Arcane which are the golden ticket for Shen’dralar lore progression. Leaching off the Blood Elf story is not good.
It’s Blizzard’s version of Disney remakes. Old classic story (Blood Elf arcane addiction), being told recently (Shen’dralar), but it fails, it’s boring and it’s not as engaging as the original.
None of this matters though, because Blizzard aren’t writing the stories like this.
If they were, every race would always pay homeage to Trolls, Vrykul, Earthen and Pandaren because they were first races on Azeroth. You need to see the races as individuals, not part of “well this amazing achievement from the blood elves is actually a night elf achievement and merit.” That’s not how Blizzard view the races and I’m glad about that.
You can’t demand night elf individuality but yet in the next breathe also demand the other elven victories and masteries should be night elf achievements. Overcoming the Arcane addiction through the restored Sunwell is a Sin’dorei achievement; not a Night Elf achievement.
Essentially, it’s lying to the playerbase because you want people to play night elves based on mis-truths and potential lies. You have to be open and honest with the players and say “these are the night elves; take them as you will” and “these are the blood elves; take them as you will.” You can’t say, “night elves are the far greatest of the elves, because any achievement or merit for the other elves is essentially a night elf achievement.” It’s all lies.
I get that you want more people to play night elves, but telling lies in the lore isn’t the way to go about it.
Blood Elf achievements are Blood Elves achievements. Not nelf achievements in any way, shape or form and Blizzard have never displayed such.
I don’t know about that, I disagree with that take on blood elves I think. The Highborne were an intense bunch, and rather zealous about being able to use their arcane magic, or they wouldn’t have been exiled. And they are the origin of the blood elves, I have always had the impression this is the foundation of sin’dorei as their own race. Not a weak offshoot, but a very driven and magic focused one.
I think a major difference between their storylines is simply the amount of civilisation happening in EK vs Kalimdor. The night elves could easily choose to remain isolated, while humans were busy building towns and cities everywhere. If you need a hand quite desperately, and your neighbour is both visible enough, and seems adequately civilised and organised, it’s not so odd to go say hi. I have no doubt the high elves still felt properly superior tho, it’s the elven privilege 
Edit, I give up, too many elves before I’ve had coffee lol.
Night elf story telling now should be about being incredible… enough about mana addiction, evil arcane, hide from the legion, arrogant night elves… that was good enough for blood elves and co.
Now we should be seeing why night elves and their lot had the most powerful magical age and are the oldest and most knowledgeable arcane casters, nature casters, and fel casters, and the second oldest priest casters.
We should be seeing what 15,000 years of knowledge, after countless tragedies can yield.
We should now be seeing how powerful the well of eternity is, and the new thing Amirdrassil has done via Azeroth to them.
Elune and the dark side and light side of the moon - shocking little of that available even with Night warrior chain.
We should be seeing the best of them.
They have done addiction, they have done isolated night elves, lost in forest and ruins is done - time to emerge. time to see the action.
For night elves that should be rebuilding and recovering their lands. Maybe showing the other elves how it’s done as the oldest and most experienced of the lot.
wherever we go, that really needs superior knowledge, higher skill, in world matters, we should have night elves involved.
They need to completely reverse the current slump and perception which are
- night elves are weak
- night elves are the "beaten by everyone else elf group
- Night elves are the primitive elves -
- Night elves (as in alliance night elves) don’t do arcane magic and aren’t good at it, it’s a blood elf thing or nightborne thing (as if nightborne arne’t night elven)
- Night elves have city phobia and won’t know what to do in one.
- Night elves aren’t dangerous
- Hardly any sign that night elves are nocturnal - when you look at Suramar and Ardenweald, you see a night/
8 Night elves are always serene - Never fierce or savage in battle
- Night elves are always in distress
But again - that’s about being in the past and the question becomes; is it important now?
I don’t believe it is. Fel stuff is primarily with the Demon Hunters and Warlocks. The Night Elves have a say in the former and nothing in the latter. Indeed, with the Council of the Black Harvest now, night elf warlocks aren’t needed for that as majority of them became Satyr and were killed.
I also don’t think the night elves are the most knowledgeable fel casters because prior to having no lore behind playable night elf warlocks, those night elves who were warlocks, became Satyr and were killed. Fel stuff for night elves, in terms of Warlock stuff, isn’t necessary and should be forgotten. If any Elves need fel / warlock lore, it’s blood elves and they do have characters to support them who are very powerful.
I believe recent lore suggests that Shinfel Blightsworn is the most powerful elven warlock alive, at present and the Legion sought her specifically.
I think night elves need a break to be fair. The War Within is that break…people, in general, want a break from night elf lore because it’s been heavily featured since Legion and it is time to move on.
I mean, we coped with WOTLK and TBC with little night elf lore, I’m sure we can cope with no night elf lore for an expansion which primarily revolves around Humans, Orcs and Void Elves.
But that isn’t needed though…what do Blood Elves and Nightborne need to reclaim when they’ve got their homes already? That’s a nothing story…irrelevance and poorly thought out.
Void Elves have Telogrus, where they are free to research the Void and High Elves live between Dalaran and Stormwind and are fully aware they are in no position to make war with Quel’Thalas.
And Blood Elves already did this, in the lore with the Farstriders and returned Magisters, before TBC came out. So, there’s no need for some crap lore about night elves showing how to retake a homeland, especially since night elves aren’t even on Kalimdor anyway and since Blood Elves already have their home. I don’t really understand this comment, other than wanting to try and showcase crap lore about how awesome night elves are and how bad blood elves are, which isn’t what I’m here for.
It’s all about importance on Blizzard’s end.
I don’t think they are going to remove anything from Blood Elves and Nightborne, just to make Night Elves feel good and that is what I support. Under no circumstance should emotion be used to take from one race and give to another. Blizzard needs to listen to moderate night elf fans, yes - but anything which is “Blood Elves need to have Arcane Golems taken away and given to the Night Elves!” should be perma-binned. I do not support that.
THEY NEED TO SHOW THE NIGHT ELVEN DEMON HUNTERS BEING POWERFUL, NOT THE NIGHT ELF NATION BEING POWERFUL DEMON hunters or having a powerful demon hunter wing. Yes, night elf ones in particular - we already have seen the blood elves as strong in-game, it’s night elves that are been see
The illidari are a seaprate faction and most people forget that the Cenarion circle is a separate faction, they keep treating them like they’re night elf nation and they’re not.
the Order of Elune pretty much runs night elf nation, the Highborne are a separate faction allied with them, it serves the race, but the picture isn’t small.
What I mean is that these individuals need to be shown as capable and brilliant in their fields in game as they have been described in t he lore.
And no, it’s not the past, it’s very much the present too, the great empire is the past, but the Shen’dralar are still knowledgeable and highly capable arcanists that earned them the regarded as most revered, trusted with the top projects and the valuable knowledge of the realm - they’re
The lore has been clear on the strength of the Moonguard and the kaldorei magic users, it’s high time we see the evidence in the existing Shen’dralar and Moonguard.
the same goes for both the demon hunters and the druids. Thaon Mooncaller cannot be the only druid that actually looks dangerous and capable outside Malfurion Stormrage and whoever is the next raid boss druid.
Same or the priestesses of the moon… the pattern is clear in the night elves, they are just failing at showing them like they do in the lore, whether it’s in terms of capability, or thier city or their star culture - it’s all too thin currently.
This is what I mean. And no, it should never be the case that blood elves are the only and best arcane users of the elves, that is not what the lore says, both the night elven magic using groups of Shen’dralar/Moonguard/Farondis and the Nightborne would be better at many aspects of it because of their greater affinity, knowledge and years. - and no, it shouldn’t be removed just so blood elves can feel different, there is clear overlap in many race species, when you jump from human to Kul’tiran to Forsaken and to Gilnean, they have their unique things but they overlap a lot too, because they’re the same race root.
it’s precisely their lack of showing this properly is why people have debates that question whether night elves can even use the arcane -
I get that; but you need to look at what the Night Elves do well in the present, not the past.
For all things Fel and when it comes to the Elves, I believe Blood Elves take the Warlock stuff and Night Elves take the Demon Hunter stuff. (That was kind of the thing in TBC as we saw the Blood Elves as the Karabor Warlocks and Magi and the Night Elves as the Demon Hunters.)
Shinfel Blightsworn, as rumoured to be the most powerful Elven Warlock alive now, makes Night Elf Warlocks obsolete because she can easily come back in Midnight and basically show them all how to be an Elf Warlock.
But we do have Kor’vas Bloodthorn who was trained by Illidan directly, who can show how to demon hunter, properly.
But the Arcane is vast with many areas.
Blood Elves, are hands down, the best at Arcane Golems, Fire Magic, Blood Magic and Pheonix Magic, along with a brilliant knowledge of how to fight “fire with fire” because they had to, unlike their night elf counterparts, where none of them were fighting on a daily basis, to keep their lands in check.
Regarding Arcane Golems - we have seen this so many times from the Ruins of Silvermoon, to the Isle of Thunder, to Suramar and them dealing with the Arcane Constructs of Elisande’s Loyalists. It’s just the lore and you have to accept it.
You can’t take that area of mastery and legacy away from them because you want night elf mages to be the best at everything, all of a sudden. That stuff in Quel’Thalas has to be a boon for the Sin’dorei Magisters and no amount of convincing will tell me otherwise. The Shen’dralar have their own nature based stuff which works exactly as intended for night elves overall. A blend of nature and arcane in their Ancients and Treants of the Arcane.
They have a strong basis and no need to tell bullcrap lore on how the Blood Elf feats should go the Night Elves.
Night elves are wood elves but he wants the night elves to be the most superior kind of elves becaue he thinks they deserve it.