Before reading this thread, it would be wise to first read the first lsit i made from the ladder on Battle-Net…

-TOP 10 FOR EACH REALM

Lordaeron
UD: 3
HU: 4
OR: 2
NE: 0
RA: 1

Azeroth
UD: 3
HU: 2
OR: 3
NE: 0
RA: 2

Northrend
UD: 3
HU: 2
OR: 3
NE: 0
RA: 2

Kalimdor
UD: 8
HU: 1
OR: 1
NE: 0
RA: 0

TOTALS
UD: 17
HU: 9
OR: 9
NE: 0 (loooooooooooooooool)
RA: 5


..let's begin.

There isn't one huge, glaring flaw repsonsible for the Night Elves' lack of strength; rather, they are weak because of an amalgamation of several weaknesses, each of which I will outline in this post. These weaknesses generally fall into one of four categories:




- 1) Screwed up Tier-1

- 2) Lack of Damage Output in Tier-2

- 3) Mediocre Mobile Healing

- 4) Weak Heroes



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Part 1: Screwed up Tier-1
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So, during the beta, Blizzard decided to perform a little “experiment”, as it were, on the Night Elves' Tier-1. Unfortunately, the changes they made altogether made Night Elves' Tier-1 arguably the weakest of all the races. Not by a huge amount, of course, but just enough to turn the tide between two evenly matched players in the non-Night Elf's favor.

Huntresses: Huntresses were overpowered early in beta. Everyone knows that. Huntresses were actually overpowered in Tier-1 back in ye olde classic as well, but back then nobody cared about Tier-1 a great deal, so it didn't matter. But with the increased importance of Tier-1, all of that changed.

So, Blizzard makes the changes to the huntress. Slightly more health, slightly more armor, slightly more damage, and a completely new armor type, one that takes +50% damage from both piercing and siege. These changes made huntresses quite a bit stronger than most Tier-1 melee (with the exception of grunts once they have berserker strength, but that's tier-2). Overall, the effect that the changes had were:


Huntresses > Tier-1 Melee

Huntresses = Tier-1 Ranged (small numbers)

Huntresses < Tier-1 Ranged (large numbers)

Huntresses < Mixed Armies

These changes seen by themselves don't seem to bad; hunts counter something, but also have a counter themselves. However, you won't really begin to see why the Night Elves' are underpowered until the changes made in beta and beyond are taken in as whole.

Archers: Another strategy that was deemed overpowered early in beta was mass archers. Archers had the least amount of health of Tier-1 ranged, but they had such great damage and range that they were extremely good hero-killers, especially when combined with roar, trueshot aura, and entangle. To fix this, Blizzard made the archers more generic; more hp, less damage. While most felt this was the wrong way to fix the problem because it lessened the NE's racial identity, at least it was balanced. Then, after the huntress armor change, the Night Elves' had no counter to mass ranged. Blizzard's solution? Reduce the archer's HP from 310 to 240, but give them -35% piercing resist and -20% magic resist. The effects this change had are as follows:


Archers last longer against piercing damage.

Archers last the same against magic damage.

Archers last less time against normal damage.

Archers last less time against siege damage.

Archers last less time against hero damage.

Archers last less time against chaos damage.

So, these changes made archers better against one damage type, the same against one more, and worse against four. In my own opinion, Blizzard went about this imbalance the wrong way. Instead of decreasing piercing damage versus archers (which doesn't make much sense since archers aren't supposed to be taking the damage in the first place), they should've boosted the archer's damage versus medium armor.

Glaive Thrower: This thing sucks. Everyone knows that. The damage output for how much gold it costs (210) is pathetic. But this isn't really part of the cause of the Night Elves' Tier-1 woes, as the other three races don't even have siege at Tier-1.

And now it comes together…

So, what have I proven with this analysis of the Night Elves' Tier-1? Well, not much, so far. I mean, if you look at the statistics, the Night Elves have a counter to tier-1 melee, they have a counter to tier-1 ranged, so what's the problem? The problem is that they have no counter to a mixed army. The root of this problem is that the Night Elves' counter to ranged relies on the archer taking damage from the ranged units, which won't happen until the battle has already been decided in a mixed battle. Consider the following unit choices versus an enemy mixed Tier-1 army.

1.) Pure hunts- The hunts have a slight advantage over the melee units, but the extra damage taken from piercing (+50%) more than outweighs that. The huntresses will certainly lose. But that's ok, I mean, mixing should beat massing, right? Right.

2.) Pure archers- Ok, the only way you could possibly think archers would win here is if you're on crack, in which case you have larger problems than video game imbalances. Obviously, the archer's pathetic 240 hp + 150% damage from normal attacks is the cause of them losing horribly (as well it should be).

3.) Mixed hunts & archers- Ok, here's where imbalance rears its ugly head. Assuming an even number of melee and ranged units, I think we can agree that the battle is pretty much decided when one side's melee line is broken and the other side's melee reaches the first side's ranged. So, when the battle starts off, let's see how it works out in terms of damage:

Non-NE's ranged to NE's melee line damage: 150%
Non-NE's melee to NE's melee line damage: 100%
NE's melee to Non-NE's melee line damage: 100%
NE's ranged to Non-NE's melee line damage: 100%

Conclusion: See where the problem is? Because of the way Blizzard implemented the rebalancing of huntresses and archers, a Night Elf player's front line will take significantly more damage than the Non-NE player's. This will result in the Night Elf player's front line being broken faster than the other player's.

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Part 2: Lack of Damage Output in Tier-2
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All of the other races gain pretty much one good damage dealing unit in Tier-2: their siege unit. The mortar team, demolisher, and meat wagon all do excellent damage (I did a comparison a while ago, and all of their damage outputs are within 10% of each other, neglecting their specific upgrades, which would make for a theorycrafting nightmare) against casters (unarmored), and good damage against melee (heavy). As we all know, the ballistae (now the glaive thrower) has been nerfed into oblivion. Instead of being a decent tier-2 siege unit, it is a useless tier-1 free experience unit, due to its damage nerf (with no equivalent decrease in gold cost), and the fact that all other siege units got a new upgrade for the expansion, but not so for the glaive thrower. Instead it got what all decent and upright Night Elf players were viciously clamoring for: a new name and in-game model! Thank you Blizzard, for giving us a unit that looks cool but plays like crap.

So where is the Night Elves' damage dealer in Tier-2? The Mountain Giant is good for taking damage, but decidedly mediocre at dealing it. The dryad's damage is less than that of an archer, as it is a hybrid anti-caster ranged unit. The Druid of the Claw, Druid of the Talon, and faerie dragon all dish out a pittance of damage, as they are casters. The Hippo Rider deals the exact same damage as an archer, despite costing more than twice as much. Ok, I'll admit that the Hippogryph deals excellent damage, but alas, it is an anti-air only unit.

Conclusion: The truth is that archers and huntresses both do decent damage for their tier, but then the Night Elves do not gain another good attack unit until Tier-3, when the Bear Form Druid of the Claw and Chimaera appear.

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Part 3: Mediocre Mobile Healing
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Nobody will dispute that moonwells are good. While they may not be as effective as burrows or militia in fending of an attack by themselves, they certainly are excellent at complementing an army, especially when you consider that, unlike burrows, militia, or the HotD/BC attack, the enemy doesn't even have to be around for you to use them! Unfortunately for Night Elven players worldwide, you can't take moonwells with you to the battlefield (unless the battlefield happens to be your own base). So what is the Night Elf player's substitute for moonwells when they're actually fighting? Rejuvenation, of course! Rejuvenation, that oh-so-atrocious-sorry-excuse-for-battle-healing-125-man a-completely-dispellable piece of fetid carp. Ok, maybe not that bad, but certainly closer than it should be. Problems with Rejuvenation:


Extremely micro intensive- If you're doing the form-rejuv-form combo, which is needed in order for Druids of the Claw to be worth their high gold cost, then be prepared to be spending the vast majority of your time doing so rather than managing your heroes or focus firing with ranged. First, you'll need to pull the bear you want to cast rejuv out of the battle. Second, you'll need to hit “f”, in order to switch that bear to a caster. Third, you'll need to hold down alt, and scan your units for which ones need the rejuv. Fourth, cast the rejuvenation on the unit. Fifth, if the unit was being focus fired (and therefore taking damage far more rapidly than rejuvenation is healing it), then pull the unit out (and remember to send it back in later). Sixth, repeat the previous the steps until that caster is out of mana. Seventh, bear form the caster. Eighth, send the bear back into battle. Ninth, repeat for all other Druids of the Claw as needed.


Now, if you're using priests or statues, you need to do this: First, set “Heal” or “Essence of Blight” to autocast if you're Human or Undead. If you're Orc, hit “E” on your witch doctor group and plant that ward behind your units. Second, oh wait, there isn't one.


High mana cost- 125 mana. That might not seem so bad for 400 health being healed, but think about the caster it's on. That caster has the same amount of mana as all other normal casters (except for Spirit Walker, which has more), despite costing twice as much in gold, wood, and supply. That 125 mana is actually 250 mana if you take into account the Druid of the Claw's overall cost.


Dispellable- Neither heal nor essence of blight can be dispelled, but rejuvenation can. Healing ward can also be dispelled (and even shot), but even if it was up for only a few seconds, refilling 6-10% of your army's health (note: Healing wards heal 2% of each unit's health per second) before it was dispelled for 200 mana seems like a pretty good deal to me. Rejuvenation is often cast on units being focus-fired, and so its appearance on the battlefield is usually obvious, and therefore more easily dispelled.

In addition to the Night Elves' spell heal being weaker than everyone else's, they also lack a healing item in their shop. The Orcs have the healing salve, the Humans the scroll of rejuvenation, and the Undead the scroll of healing. Where is the Night Elven healing item?

In further addition, the Night Elves lack a hero healing spell. They have no version of holy light, death coil, or healing wave. None.

Conclusion: The Night Elves' have crappy healing out side their base, due to a mediocre unit heal spell, lack of a healing item, and lack of hero healing spell.

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Part 4: Weak Heroes
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Here I will tackle what will undoubtably be the most controversial part of this article: that the Night Elves have arguably the weakest heroes. Put simply, the Night Elves' heroes seem to have the weakest skills. The Night Elves just don't seem to have much that compares to skills like Storm Bolt, Blizzard, Flamestrike, Healing Wave, Shockwave, Unholy Aura, Frost Nova, or Vampiric Aura. Not that other races don't also have weak skills, of course they have them too, but they have strong skills as well so the weak ones never get picked anyway. Here's the Night Elf heroes and why each one is weak:

Demon Hunter: Good early game hero, weak late-game until you get his ultimate. Mana burn and immo are both good skills early on, but both lose their effectiveness late-game. It's very difficult to get to caster heroes in order to mana burn them in a large battle without getting storm bolt + surrounded (or the racial equivalent). Everyone knows immolation is an extremely weak damage dealer late-game (tier-3 melee has tons of health, immo doesn't hit air). And yes, evasion is good, but why would people be focus firing your Demon Hunter if he's not doing much harm anyway? He also got an indirect nerf (along with the Blademaster) when hero damage was added to the game. Needs: Mana burn range increase at higher levels, and immolation should be %-based.

Keeper of the Grove: Similarly to the Demon Hunter, he is good early game, but weak late-game, although for altogether different reasons. His two good skills (entangle and force of nature) are both, well, good in the early game, but both can be dispelled easily later on. Thorns Aura sucks, and Tranquility can be interrupted by any anti-channeling skill. Needs: AoE entangle at higher levels, a thorns aura that doesn't suck.

Priestess of the Moon: Good late-game hero (+30% damage to most of your army & undispellable scouting) but very weak early game. Searing arrows is crap: “Wow +30 damage every two seconds for a level 3 hero skill! Awesome!” She's obviously physically weak, and can't take it in tier-1. Needs: If Blizzard wants her to be a viable 1st hero, then give searing arrows splash damage, but if they're fine with her just being support, then she's fine.

Warden: A melee hero that has no support hero to heal her, and that has neither high health nor high armor. Sure, blink can get you out of the battle, but I'd like a hero that either can stay in the back or can take the damage if he/she has to be up front. Other hero skills that help keep the hero alive like evasion and mirror image don't require that you actually run away from the battle, so why should the Warden's do just that? Needs: A ranged attack (aren't Night Elves supposed to be mostly ranged, and doesn't that disc look like it's supposed to be thrown to you?), and/or blink rebalanced at level 2 so it costs more mana but has a shorter cooldown, and/or Fan of Knives buff.

Conclusion: The main problem is that the Night Elves have no hero that is useful through all tiers. The Archmage is useful at Tier-1, Tier-2, and Tier-3. The Death Knight is useful at Tier-1, Tier-2, and Tier-3. I'm kinda clueless about the Orcs, but the Shadow Hunter and Tauren Chieftain seem like they're good at all three tiers (correct me if I'm wrong here Orc players). I wish the Night Elves had something that's equivalent, but right now they don't.

As I stated earlier, not one of these by itself is causing the Night Elven race to be noticeably underpowered; there's nothing of the sort that gets players all riled up and screaming “OMFG NE S|_|X0RS!!!!!!!!!111”. This makes the imbalance harder to see; you can't just point at one thing and say, “This is why NE sucks.” Instead, all of the above four categories when put together cause the racial weakness our friends of the night currently experience.