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Information
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General
The high elves are a variation of humans, thus are based upon them as a template.
In practice however the high elves are played like a hybrid of human and night elves, having access to both swordsmen and archers,
ballista as siege unit, later hippogryphs(and their riders) instead of gryphons as flyer, while kept the spellcasters of human roster.
One of the changes i have made to them, is so that they regenerate hit points at a rate of 0.50 but only during day-time.
(so like the night elves regen at night, but reverse in day-time) |
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Units and Buildings
The Workers are, unlike the Peasants, not capable of turning into Militia at the dangerous situation.
Units-wise both the Swordsmen and Archer is a copy of Human's Footman and Night elves' Archer, the Ballista is the Reign of Chaos
Night elf siege unit, and can be spammed right away with only a Blacksmith.
All primary troops get trained at the Hall of Warriors, which uses the high elf reskinned model of a night elven Hall of Hunters.
Additionally, with the upgrade to a Keep becomes available the Den of Travellers structure, that when built allows you to train
Outriders and Farstriders. The Outrider is a elven warrior riding a magic steed, that because a property of this mount is considered
immune to spells. Highly mobile and capable of dealing damage in melee, it has considerably less hitpoints than a human knight
when compared, a gap that gets remedied on the offensive side of things by being able to cast Faerie Fire spell on their own
to soften up and reveal targets using their mana pool, which remains a rather meagre amount.
As its very likely of their opponents to try fleeing, also when upgraded can Ensnare anyone that tries to get away.
The Farstrider is kind of an versatile assassin unit, on its own acts like a beefed up archer, that shoots poisoned arrows. Those
can only cause damage over time on the unit that got hit, much like the envenomed spears of Wyvern riders and very unlike
the spears thrown by those Dryads that also slow their targets. Being rather fast, the Farstrider can hide at night to ambush her
opponents, thus making a great companion to the Ranger hero to setup a lethal trap together.
Perhaps uniquely, the Farstrider is capable of switching weapons after learning this ability through a upgrade, with her trusty blade
out she can move faster and make quick work of anything that gets in her way. As she cannot attack air units in this melee mode
however you might like to switch her back to using her trusted crossbow if facing air units or large groups of tough opponents. |
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Items and Summons
The Tower of Sun replaces the Arcane Sanctum as the spellcaster's building, with the latter's appearance being re-used for the shop.
The Sanctum Vault as you can guess is the shop structure for high elves. Inside the shop are two new items, a blue version of the
regeneration scroll that works for out of combat mana regeneration instead of hit points, and the Mana Stone Token that can be used
to obtain Arcane Guardian golems, durable slow-moving units that can demolish bases rather quickly and are spell immune.
Also i have decided to add Dust of Appearance and Anti-Magic potion, with the rest of items being the same as the human shop,
including the Orb of Fire. The research for Backpacks is located within the shop structure instead, as to still give its anim a purpose. |
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Spells and Teching
On the Spellcasters there are some minor changes, like their version of Dragonhawk that gets named Wind Serpent is trained at the
spellcaster building, and has Cyclone ability instead of the Magic leash. Noticeable is the new mastery upgrade in the Tower of Sun,
that reduces mana cost for all of Priest and Sorceress spells when researched, that is only available after fully teching their spells.
There are other new researches in the tech-tree, mostly recycled from RoC beta stuff like Town Watch, which gives all buildings
increased sight-radius, or the single-stage Gold mining upgrade in the Blacksmith that becomes available with a Castle.
Arcane Armor is a replacement spell of Inner Fire, with the change being that accelerates life regeneration rate by half while active
instead of boosting the unit's damage while it lingers. |
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Heroes and Abilities
Hero-wise they have a variant of the Blood Mage that is called Battle Mage, with an awesome high elf appearance and different skill set.
The Battle Mage can use Mana Shield with improved stats to protect himself, casts Mark of Fire on any unit to summon his Phoenix,
and summons Spell breakers on the spot as his bodyguards, although he is limited to two at a time(one at first level of skill, even)
Those high elf Spell breakers further differ in skill set from their blood elf counterparts assisting in the human armies, as they do not
possess of a passive immunity to magic, but can instead use Magic Defend when required to turn immune to magic at the expense of
movement speed, an ability that those permanent summons gain from level 2 onwards. At the third level they gain Control Magic ability
for free without having to research it, and another difference is the lack of Feedback passive ability on all levels.
When asked about the reasoning behind their methodical differences the high elven spell breakers replied that it would be unpurposeful
to destroy the mana of spellcasters when they wish to control their buffs and summons, as their opponents then would not able to cast
spells or summon creatures without mana thus leaving spell breakers with nothing to do beside standing about on guard duty.
The Archmage and Paladin have gotten new models, and in the case of the Paladin a new set of elven personal names, while their skills
remain unchanged from their Human counterparts. The only change is they got is life-regeneration change affecting all high elves.
Other than those is available the Ranger hero, which can summon Warhawks to scout(and later assist in fighting), use Cold Arrows against
opponents to damage and slow them, and has a Drain Mana skill which like the Drain Life skill of her Dark counterpart at the neutral Tavern
works only on enemies. As an ultimate she can learn Sanctuary, which can be used to preserve one unit at a time. Oh and she can Hide too.
As high elves dont have a direct replacement of the Mountain King, this new Ranger hero is filling in his spot at a vastly different role. |
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Pros and Cons
The strengths of high elves is their early aggressional capacity, thanks to having a pool of easily amassable tier one units. At late game they
are not weak either, the lack of magic immune units or fast ground units might pose an unique issue and challenge to overcome however.
The addition of Hippogryphs, that are heavily armored unlike their night elf couterparts, opens up a whole new alley of strategies.
As a weakness the high elves have got inferior defensive capabilities, having to rely on units more so than other races to defend their
bases as the defensive towers become available later than other, yet each tower are reasonably a tad bit more powerful on their own,
with both of the level 3 equivelants dealing considerable splash damage at an good rate of fire. Of those two the Sky-Fury tower can
only attack Air units with the lightning bolt it has, while the Earth-Fury tower uses a dragon's breath against ground units.
The Guard Tower can only be built with a level two Town Hall structure, and the Scout Tower may use Reveal ability after Magic Sentry. |
Approved
