High Elves are pretty much extinct. Those few that remain are arcanists, you cannot take 1% out of 1% and make a techtree out of it :-/
While
Quel'Danil... actually
didn't abandon magic in canon, apparently (they also maintained an independent supply of Dragonhawks), which makes the lore underpinning of this a bit bunk,
Quel'Lithien did abandon magic. So they actually
do exist, as stable settlements (well, Quel'Lithian wound up turned into Wretched by some random cursed artifact messing with their heads during Cata, but the highly similar Quel'Danil is a stable settlement with it's own death, and more importantly
birth, records). Just not the specified group, weirdly enough.
Seriously, at least pay attention to the Opening Post and
actually do some research. Your objections have been noted and debunked. Now, I'll go on about what
needs to be replaced (my ultimate idea is that as many unit dynamics be preserved as possible, but done by different means to get a different feel for very similar results):
Archmage, Paladin and Blood Mage require replacement, as the first and last for being
entirely magic-based and the Paladin for being something that the High Elves never had. Mere reskin doesn't work, as the High Elves never developed a warrior-priest order like the Humans wound up doing. Because of this, they don't have Paladins. The Blood Knights of the Blood Elves are a divergence based on ripping magic from a Naaru, rather than an adjustment to Priest training to get warrior-priests to deal with Undead in short order. Mountain King gets a pass for the Wildhammer alliance.
I recommend a Hunter-leaning Ranger (summons Bear, for example) in replacement of Archmage, filling in similar roles from different directions. Then the Blood Mage can be a Wretched, using spontaneous mana drains like Devour (possibly in combination with a mass debuff to supply things to Devour) and a Metamorphosis that causes them to lose health while it's active, getting a similar abnormal benefit from Priest support the Pheonix has. Then the Paladin is, obviously, replaced with a beefed up Priest that goes all in on support.
Sorceresses and Spellbreakers are entirely Arcane spellcasters, and thus need replacement. The Sorceress can be replaced with a nature-magic attacker, using poison and a summon for offense and having a flying or sometimes-invisible transformation that amplifies the CC usefulness. Spellbreakers can continue their anti-caster use, but need a different angle for it that
stealing the spells (surprises me that they predate the Sunwell's destruction). A sort of proto-Paladin, tackling it from the angle of a more inquisitorial style than the warrior-priest style Lordaeron went with, could work out. Holy magic used in a heavily anti-Arcane way, rather than anti-Undead like the original Paladins, keeping the anti-caster role of the original Spellbreaker. A Wildhammer Shaman would also be usable in replacement of one of them.
The Workshop in general needs replacement because, honestly,
none of it fits the Wildhammer Dwarves. Riflemen are at least debatable, but heavy siege equipment? That's going to be High Elf stuff. So the Siege Tank gets replaced with some kind of siege beast, possibly a bear, the Mortar Team gets replaced by a ballista and the Flying Machine... Not sure, actually. Both the flying options are already taken by persistence of the Gryphon Aviary as a
perfect fit, so I'm not sure what could replace the Flying Machine. Maybe unmounted Gryphons, in which case the rider might replace the Footman or Rifleman as the respective basic unit, using the Hypogryph Archer's mount mechanic. Then the Gryphon Aviary would need to be replaced by something
completely different... Maybe a general beast upgrade center, shifting Animal War Training and a few other animal training abilities? Could roll into the beast-building that replaces the workshop...
Dragonhawk Riders: Not
quite replacement, as the issue lies solely on the fact that Aerial Shackles and Cloud are Arcane magic. Swap to similar effects with a different fluff and you can use the exact same model, possibly even keep the name.
Knights: While they
could be reskinned, there's enough short and melee ranged stuff already, and for Farstrider-based Elves, the mobility is
begging for a ranged unit, if only as an upgrade option. The pattern of a t3 melee unit can be preserved by an upgraded beast from the workshop replacement.
---
The Footman and Peasant can be reskinned, and the Rifleman can be replaced by an archer, but in the event of desperately wanting to actually change them for something else, the Peasant-equivalent could have a basic spell in replacement of the Call to Arms effect, offering something for buff interactions to apply to. Similarly, the Footman swap could have a bit of a shift to the Defend ability, adjusting the numbers so that it's more blanket defensive than specifically anti-archer. An Archer unit would do well to use a poison, instead of a range increase, as an upgrade. Similar damage results, in a decent number of situations, but it also bumps up damage slightly during combat.
