Preface

With reworks and DLCs coming out for old and new races alike, I'd like to take a look at High Elves (my one true faction), share my thoughts, and collect opinions on what people would most like to see for them in the likely event that they get DLC/a rework somewhere down the line.

I'm not expecting to see High Elf content particularly soon, but my hope is that we can get some good feedback out there before development of it is underway, to help CA give the people what they want.  I'd rather wait and see my pointy little guys get the love they deserve than try to rush perfection.

For me, as cool as new content sounds, I'd much prefer to see old content updated and polished. In rough order of priority (definitely not expecting to see all of these changes, but man, I'd be so happy if I did), here's what I'd like to see.

Changes to Existing Content

1. Add/improve faction mechanics for the older factions

In the current state of things, I find many of the older WH2 factions boring and simplistic, and struggle to convince myself to play them over newer ones with more interesting mechanics - the LLs are very cool, but I can just confederate for them, and then use them with Alith's stances and Shadow-walkers, Eltharion's Mistwalkers. or Imrik's dragons, items, and buffs.

1.1. Tyrion and Teclis: they share a single faction mechanic: random Phoenix Court dilemmas which sometimes show up - there's virtually no reason to play them over newer and more interesting High Elf factions. Suggestions I've heard for Teclis include some kind of Oxyotl-style mechanic to go where the forces of Order need him, or something resembling Gelt's Colleges mechanic. I'm not sure what the best direction to take Tyrion's faction in would be - perhaps an expansion on the whole Defender of Ulthuan/Blood of Aenarion choice? Or a Karl-style Ulthuan management/confederation system (unless that's more appropriate for Alarielle)? Could definitely use more ideas here.

1.2. Alarielle: she isn't great. Her forest spirits recruitment is far less significant in a world where allied recruitment exists - I've heard it suggested that she could get Worldroots access (though I'm certainly not attached to that idea in particular, I'd just like her to have something interesting and unique).

1.3. Alith Anar: his mechanics, like Alarielle's, have been depreciated by time. Assassinating people halfway across the world takes too long in a game with a larger map and a faster pace than early WH2. The Influence rewards are far less impactful now that it's so much easier to get than it was when he was released. The stances and unique unit are still great, but the rest is a little lackluster. I've seen suggestions that he could be made into a horde faction - that would be cool. He's definitely not in as dire need of updates as the first three, though.

1.4. Eltharion: he's mostly fine. Some small QoL improvements might be neat (let allies recruit Mistwalkers limited to a small fraction of Eltharion's own cap for the unit, for example, and maybe buff autoresolve's odds of capturing a lord/hero when you have space, and Interrogate could use some tweaks, such as previewing result and making it clear that you can't interrogate two at once or the same target twice - come to think of it, it would also be nice if you could keep lords after their faction died), but he's basically in a good place - better than Alith Anar.

1.5. Imrik:  ...is completely fine, I think? His campaign can be pretty hard but that's not a bad thing. Maybe give him something better than the low-grade dragon buffs after beating all the legendary dragons, though I'm not sure what, and he's already in a good enough place.

1.6. Alternatives: if we can't have any of this, I'd at least like to see confederation made easier (and perhaps a Dwarfs-style ability to confederate defeated LL, since it's hard to raid them back into existence without a raid stance - I am aware there's a mod for confederating defeated LLs, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be vanilla), so I can use Tyrion/Teclis with the factions which have mechanics.

2. Add/improve race mechanics

While the Sword of Khaine is technically an Elves mechanic, I'd consider High Elves' only unique racial mechanic to be Influence, which is surprisingly bare-bones when compared to other WH2 factions (Dark Elves get Black Arks and slaves, Lizardmen get blessed spawnings, Lord Kroak, and the geomantic web, and Skaven get undercities and food). All four vanilla TWH2 factions get rites, which are neat, but also a little dated.

2.1. Influence: for the core mechanic of a race, Influence is very limited in what you can do with it. It raises and lowers relations, and you use it to buy lords with good traits. Influence doesn't feel like it lets you have significant influence on the world at large; aside from using it to hire lords, typically you're just hoarding it and then throwing it at your current confederation target, because it's inefficient to influence more than one target at once. A rework to how you can use Influence to affect the world would be nice.

2.2. New racial mechanics: people have suggested naval trade convoys, Tower of Zharr-style mechanics for the Phoenix Court, and the ability to establish elven colonies in allied settlements (like outposts, but different, and not necessarily limited to one per faction). I'd personally like to see some kind of non-diplo-based confederation mechanic, since everyone seems to be getting those these days, and high elves already have a harder time confederating via diplomacy than many factions.  I'd also like to see something which adds significance to the minor High Elf factions and makes them worth protecting/confederating - I know it's not likely, since Bretonnia now has similar problems with its minor faction confed tech being of questionable utility (it's at least partially a game pacing issue), but it would be neat.

2.3. Rites: they feel like the weaker ones could use some buffs. For its short duration, Asuryan really doesn't give that much public order (and the influence is almost completely irrelevant with how easy it is to get in other ways). Vaul is just something that gets spammed on cooldown for the magic item, the siege ability is a nice bonus, and the rest is irrelevant (perhaps the magic item crafting could be moved to another system). Hoeth/Lileath never seem worth using, Isha is nice (but could maybe allow replenishment in foreign territory with how long the cooldown is). Eldrazor/Ladrielle also feel a bit lackluster, particularly Ladrielle. Rites certainly aren't useless in their current state, but only Isha, Asuryan, and Vaul really feel worth the cost, and Asuryan only if you can profit from it via the building discount, or you're rich and it lets you delay a rebellion at a useful time.

2.4. Economy: some economic buffs to the race in some form might be nice. Old Enterpreneur was ridiculous and I'm not asking to have it back, but right now the High Elf economy feels unusually weak, which definitely runs counter to theme.

2.5 Climate: this is kind of faction-specific, but I wasn't sure where else to put it.  Nagarythe being bad climate for half the donut elves is rough.  In a world where Ulthuan's mid- and late-game enemies are mostly in the frozen north, frozen being bad climate is even rougher.  Either some gentle climate buffs (red->orange on frozen/barrens, perhaps) or better tools for dealing with bad climate would be very welcome - as it is, since the race has low replenishment (something I generally think is good), they don't replenish at all in bad climate without buffs.  This is particularly brutal given they also don't have great ways of dealing with attrition (they're not VCounts levels of bad at it, but if they want to raze a place because the climate's bad, they'll eat a turn of attrition with no resistance unless you have Invocation of Isha up, and you can only have it up 10 turns out of 50).  This means that the only real way to play most of the fight for the frozen north is to manual every fight to minimize losses, and always occupy to avoid attrition, but the constant easy manual fights get very tedious.

3. Roster updates/retuning

Like a few older factions, High Elves feel like significant parts of their unit roster were left behind by the power creep.

3.1. High-tier units are weak for what they are. It feels like I end up playing most of the campaign with just archers and spearmen, or occasionally Silverin Guard, supplemented by ally-recruited infantry to help the line hold. Higher-tier units are not generally worth the cost and recruitment time. To some extent this is just the pacing of the game, but my beef with High Elf high-tier units in particular is that most of them (with the exception of some of the monsters, Silverin Guard, and Sisters of Avelorn) don't feel competitive for their cost, recruitment time, or the opportunity cost of not prioritizing economic buildings to just hire more chaff.   I've seen the RoR Phoenix Guard get charged by RoR Rot Knights and just lose half their health almost immediately, then get obliterated fairly quickly while dealing less than 20% of the Rot Knights' health in return damage - this is not what cavalry facecharging halberds should look like, when they're same-tier.  And it's weird to see optimal High Elf play just be T1 unit spam, with allied infantry/artillery to support when possible.

3.2. Casters have been left behind.  Factions like Tzeentch and Cathay have spell mastery mechanics, while High Elves don't, in spite of being magic-focused in lore.  You can argue the same for lizards, and I'm not fighting that, but this is about High Elves getting overshadowed as magic-users by newer factions.

3.3. Rangers are just terrible.  I don't have a solution to this, but I also don't understand why they were ever added.  Spearmen are better line infantry and archers are better damage-dealers, and both are more accessible to recruit.

3.4. Eagle claws are not very good.  They do fine anti-infantry work in scattershot mode, but they're completely worthless in single shot mode.  Dwarves got the bigger bolt thrower squads; I'd like to see some kind of comparable buff to make eagle claws decent at anti-large.  I'm not expecting them to compete with gunpowder artillery, but right now they're just pathetic at anti-large.

Future Content Speculation

With that said, new content speculation is also fun! Most people who are interested in discussing this have probably already seen all of this, but here's a list of High Elf stuff which has been suggested as future content in the past (or, in a few cases, just exists in the lore):

Legendary Characters (rough descending order of likelihood):

Aislinn

Caradryan

Belannaer

Yrelian

Althran Stormrider

Finubar

Korhil

Selafyn

Asarnil (unlikely; seems more like he might be a DoW character)

Generic characters:

Anointed of Asuryan

Lothern Sea Helm

Dragon Mage (unlikely; we already have Fire Mage with dragon mount)

Unit possibilities (that I can recall being mentioned, excluding champions like High Sister, though there is some precedent for unit champions showing up as elites in TW:WH):

Lothern Skycutter (very likely, especially if we get Aislinn or Finubar)

Merwyrm

Ship's Company, or similar marine-themed unit (possibly Wardancers)

Final Thoughts

I also collected a few things which seem like possibilities, but I'd rather not see as changes:

1. Growth and/or replenishment buffs: low growth and replenishment are thematically appropriate and I wouldn't change a thing about them. I know there's been a lot of power creep, but I'd rather see buffs in other places than better replen/growth.

2. Imrik starting buffs: Imrik's start doesn't need to be any easier. Having hard campaigns is fine, and his design makes his faction fun for it.

3. Alith Anar mount: Alith Anar doesn't need a mount. He's always done fine on foot.

3.1. Please don't give his underways stance a teleport attack, either. We don't need any more of that in the game.

4. FLC over DLC: Tyrion and Teclis are mechanically barren because they were on-launch TW:WH2 lords, and Alith Anar and Imrik were FLC, which likely placed certain limitations on development time for their factions - I love the latter two, but it makes me sad to think that their FLC status means their factions aren't as complex and detailed as they could have been.  I'd rather pay more for higher quality High Elf content.

Thank you for reading my ramblings!  I'd love to hear your ideas, feedback on mine, and general thoughts on where the race should go in the future.  Tell me what I'm right about, and what I'm wrong about!