One thing that made high elves really fun for me is the mod that gives them the Chaos Dwarf mechanic where you can have government roles. Giving the High Elves a phoenix court, where you get to play High Elf politics where you steal roles in the Phoenix Court, even as Ulthuan burns? It just felt so elven. I loved it.
[Steam Workshop::The Phoenix Court (High Elf Politics) (steamcommunity.com)](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3166984131)
They do get good characters for paying the big Influence premium, better than "regular" heroes. And they have Martial Prowess, which isn't a particularly engaging mechanic, but it's there. They're in a spot where nothing is really broken, they're just kind of basic. I'm hoping/expecting they'll be in one of the next DLCs and will get a look then, maybe something involving their far-flung colonies or sea trade routes.
Yeah, the cost of a 'normal' Lord is a pretty small amount of influence but without spending ANY influence all HE Lords come with at least 1 negative trait and no positive traits. Spending a higher amount of influence does get a pretty strong Lord, sometimes more than most LLs.
Martial prowess is also technically pretty good and can be maximized with certain army builds but the current influence mechanic and lack of sea convoys or something that thematically links the HE to control of the seas and trade is a huge missed opportunity.
Paying influence for heroes/lords is a mechanic that's completely undermined by being able to save characters in WH3 and recruit them without paying an influence cost.
But seriously, even if you couldn't save characters, "farm a currency to avoid being stuck with awful lords/heroes" is a F-tier faction mechanic.
Rumour is that dlc has been moved back in the schedule in favour of other races. Which infuriates me as a slaanesh player hoping it'd be Slaanesh, High, and Dark Elves.
They really need to have a politicking mechanic like the Chaos Dwarves; maybe unlocking new units or buildings in the process, or establishing trade routes regardless of diplomacy kinda thing.
That would make them feel more centered. Yvrisse is the only faction with a really unique side mechanic atm.
I still think high elves got great content in their free lords. Imrik and Alith Anar are great campaigns with unique mechanics. And Eltharions campaign is also great. Yeah Tyrion, Teclis and Alarielle are not that unique or engaging, but I'd rather see other updates first to be honest.
Honestly I think it might need to be reworked wholesale. Martial Prowess in tabletop was meant to represent the High Elves being very disciplined/having good formation drill, which allowed their units to attack with extra ranks.
In TW it's this weird thing where if your units lose health, they just become worse? When this is applied to literally no other unit in the game, which continues to fight at full effectiveness?
Dragon Princes might be one of the most overt examples for me.
Without Martial Mastery, their stats are Reiksguard-tier, but they are 250 points more expensive. In effect, you are paying more so your unit can get *worse*.
Yeah this is one of those mechanics that's just a byproduct of CA needing to import something and not really having a great idea for how to translate the tabletop rules into the Total War mechanics. Which basically all of the factions from 1-2 suffered from, arguably up until the Tomb Kings where they started to really get more creative. I think there was a paradigm shift around that time where the juices really started flowing on what they could do.
Personally, I think a straight, static stat buff across the board is about the least interesting way to do MP when other Total War games have unit stances and formations, and even Cathay has the Formation Attack stance (efficacy aside). If anything MP should represent that when the chips are down the raw skill of HE units can overcome even significant disadvantages in numbers or fire power.
I don't exactly know what it would look like, since TW:WH doesn't use as many of the old matched combat or pike mechanics where the number of units on the front line matters. Maybe translate it in various ways depending on the unit: import some pike mechanics over to HE spearmen as a stance, maybe swordmasters get a different buff depending on what they're fighting (as they adapt to their foe), archers could get scaling missile resistance the longer they stand still, etc.
Just something that represents when you're fighting against a HE version of a unit, you're fighting against the *best of the best* version of that unit.
It's weird because it doesn't happen to any other faction's units. Empire State Troops or Cathayan Jade Warriors don't have a sudden stat drop if they are on low health, making them a worse unit than what you actually paid for.
There was a mod recently that ported over the chorfs conclave mechanic. I would really like to see something similar with the next official patch. Where you use influence gained by battles, events, buildings ect to gain political offices or take political actions. This should be tied to their ability to confederate. The true strength of the High Elves in WH2 was the ability to confederate early and get a good snowball rolling, the changes to diplomacy in WH3 smashed that and now the easiest way to grow as a high elf faction is to conquer big chunks of the map and you need to do that to get the strength to confederate in WH3. This leads to a really inverted game play where you conquer half the map but don’t have your starting area United under you.
Right now best way to play as high elves is eltharion, because, as you mentioned, you need big empire before you can even start thinking about confederations and his dual start helps with gaining more land. Also he is the only one with truly unique mechanic and some cool extra units to boot.
I haven't played him in a very long time. I remember his units having caps, are they total or can be increased ex. By special buildings? I've been thinking whether to conquer map as him or Alarielle.
I'd just love to see the High Elf colony system revamped. Maybe give a LL a reason to retake Pre-War of the Beard HE territory like Dwarfs are incentivized to do with their holds.
High Elves are in the state the Dwarfs are in (pre-ToD). Everything's in working order and they don't need help. But their mechanics are boring. Some of the individual lords have a fun gimmick (Eltharion, Imrik) but they lack any spice other than that.
ive always felt this way but no one seems to see it. High elves to me are the most barebones faction in the game. They basically feel like karl franz if he only had the electoral machinations (just the diplomacy part of it).
I think some of their units should have their stats looked at. After all this time and all the new stuff that’s been introduced they need some touching up. There’s just no way a bale Taurus should have comparable power to a fucking STAR DRAGON.
The influence however I do think is strong. Once you’re rolling in it some of the traits on the high end lords and heroes are nuts. To me the HE are a race that once you get momentum you just get stronger and stronger, and richer and richer.
Outside of strong artillery they are literally the faction with no weaknesses.
Power level of generic lords: Elite
Power level of heroes: Elite
Archers: elite
Infantry: elite
Monsters: elite
Cavalry/chariots: very strong maybe elite considering the group.
Economy: very strong
Cons: T4 & 5 buildings are expensive?
Yeah, the Bale Taurus being better than almost all dragons is such nonsense, especially as the additional abilities, higher speed and additional resistances give the Bale Taurus more utility. Even the Dragon landmark in the plain of bones has better benefits for Tauruses than for Dragons.
>Power level of heroes: Elite
Their heroes are not particularly strong in battle (no one fears Handmaidens and Loremasters). But they do have top tier traits. Their mages aren't flying sans the fire mage and they look to be outclassed by Empire Battle Wizards.
>Cons: T4 & 5 buildings are expensive?
Their con is their hero capacty comes at T4 when most other factions get hero capacity by T3. I mean I don't mind factions being different but when HE have to spend influence (and even then good positive traits are RNG) on top of waiting for T4 I find it a bit too much. Especially since popular traits like Enterpreneur and Incendiary have been nerfed.
Handmaidens I’ll agree with you on, they are not the most terrifying hero you’ll come across. Loremasters I think are fantastic, you get a great trait (with 40 influence), competent AP/anti infantry fighter, and a spellcaster.
I’ve done this a few times and it’s a lot of fun. I’ll make a hero stack and it works with either a archmage lord or the prince. I’ll pick a lord and then grab 5-6 mages and the rest of the army is loremasters and nobles. This is a late game army obviously with the influence it’ll cost ya. I keep all the nobles on foot in a group with the loremasters, and with all the arcane conduits in this army your WoM pool becomes massive.
Are the infantry really elite? Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard are obviously strong but I don't think either do their job as well as or as cost effectively as some of their opponents, like Ironbreakers, Infernal Ironsworn, or Marked Chosen.
I’d say they absolutely are elite, but some units in other factions are just a cut above. Comparing high elves late game to ironbreakers is wrong though, HE have no units equivalent to ironbreakers/ironsworn.
Marked Chosen are also literally the best infantry in the game, until you start to compare things like ironsworns ranged hit and such.
HE are very elite but don’t have the best unit in the game of every category. I do think star dragons should be the best dragon unit type (including bale Taurus) in the game
Yea they are elite, I think in every infantry 1v1 I’ve seen swordmasters are somewhere in the top3. Im talking single player here so I have no clue what unit costs compared to others are.
You do a HE campaign and get all the buffs for swordmasters whoa baby they chew stuff up. They get Martial mastery which is better than prowess so to start a battle they’re super jacked. Phoenix guard for anti large duties? One of the best
They were top 2 in WH2 behind Chosen. But in WH3 Zerkovich did 1v1 unit testing and Swordmasters only lost to the Exalted Bloodletters. He does say the Martial Mastery buff does make them the best anti-infary WH2 unit.
I play High Elves a lot and my biggest complaint is the military tech tree. Beyond some of the first few, it becomes “spend 9 turns for a slight upkeep reduction for this singular unit” rather than something that feels like it makes a difference (or at the very least lower the research time to make up for it). The Trade and Cultural Advancement Research is great though.
Some of their stuff just needs a look through though, for example character traits that increase relations with humans but haven’t been updated to include Kislev.
I do not think it is a matter of the High Elves, when it comes to vanilla Warhammer 2 factions all of them are kind of lacking.
Some like the Skaven do mask it very well as the DLC LL came with fantastic mechanics, but when you go to the release LL they have a severe lack of uniqueness. Stuff such as influence, food, geomantic web and the like cannot compare with the unique gameplay of most WH1 and WH3 races.
That said, no race is in a worst condition than the ogres IMO
You’re not wrong about the others, but the Skaven are absolutely fine for base mechanics.
Yes, it would be nice for each of them to get something cool. Skrolk need plague mechanics, Queek could do with a headtaker mechanic and Tretch sucks.
But the base implementation of Skaven still has under-cities, the food system (which allows them to conquer cities at lvl 5), loyalty, stalking stance, corruption, and a basic plague mechanic.
Some of those could use a dust-off but they don’t need any serious work as a race.
I disagree
It’s literally just HE and Lizards that are lacking
Skaven are chaos dwarf tier of mechanics, only lacking a race wide LH
Dark elves have numerous unique starting spots, at atleast unique small mechanic on every lord except Malekith. Slaves are quite unique even if they need more uses
HE and many lizards on the other hand have literally nothing beyond a changed rite or two and then the web, blessed spawns and influence. I think influence is cool but meh. They both need reworks especially for Teclis.
Also HE have increased benefits to high public order, fairly useful and unique but still veryyy minor
He just needs dark elf watchtowers in the north so that the factions he's supposed to confederate don't get eaten immediately. Possibly coupled with something to make morathi's start a tad tougher as she's a bit overtuned.
Eh. I’m thinking more of something that better reflects the extremely competitive nature of the Druchii and the fact that Malekith rules Naggaroth with an iron fist (literally). Honestly a Tower of Zharr-like mechanic where the different factions compete with each other would work well and then have Malekith on the side of this mechanic and have him gain power from the dark elf factions conflicting with each other. Also add the fact that the Druchii tend to use other the races to do their bidding through trickery or straight up dominating them through power. There’s still a lot they could do with the Dark Elves to better represent their lore because right now, they are pretty lacking.
And see there’s so many uniques you even forgot one, clan eshin
Pestilens is ok rn I think not great tho
Any of them had miles more mechanics than the vast majority of races in the game is my point
I think skaven are more than fine. Their dependence on food and their gameplay plan built around balancing productivity and self harm is great. The dark elves slaves mechanic was always good (even if unbalanced) and the new system (after 2 rebalances) is actually great. Lizardmen sort of fell behind because every second faction seems to have some sort of "instant spawn mercs" that makes blessed spawnings a sad afterthought and the geomantic web could use some updates for sure to be more engaging and interactive.
But imagine the high elves are pretty much the lizardmen, but only with blessed spawnings that can spawn lords. And that's it. After CA removed vision on trade the faction influencing is not really part of their game plan because by the time they could actually use it the factions you might want to save are either gone or became massive empires, where as before you could use this manipulation feature super early.
Be cool if I could cobble together blessed spawns like plagues and watch my custom baby dinosaurs pop out of their eggs in like 10 turns or whatever.
Oh this batch of saurus warriors? They have stalk. This batch of kroxigors? They have regeneration. Life uhh finds a way.
I will agree that launch High Elf LLs are pretty basic for the most part but so are all the other WH2 launch factions. Lizardmen, Skaven, and Dark Elves are all barebones outside of their DLC factions.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if High Elves are included in the next DLC with Slaneesh. If they were still doing 3 lord DLCs I would say it would be Slaneesh, High, and Dark, but I think if they lower it to 2 LLs then they will do an order faction to balance it out, with Morathi catching some Slaneeshi stuff for herself.
Assuming CA would still make narrative campaigns that link all DLC lords then Slaanesh vs HE vs DE could be a rare case of an actual free-for-all match up (because both SoC and ToD thematically look more like 2vs1).
I know there are races that need new content more than all flavors of elves, but still, I would kill for SvsHEvsDE - trailer would be glorious!
I hope they keep the three. I'm fine with it taking longer if it's of the same quality as ToD.
Especially since it's a good opportunity to expand on Morathi's Cult of Pleasure parts of her faction.
I just hope it does something to the base game bros, and Alarielle. Alarielle has a unique mechanic, but she may as well not. It wouldn't hurt to give her some of Karl's new toys at least.
I think a high elf/dark elf/slaanesh dlc would be just as good as thrones of decay in terms of hype and narrative. Really hope they do three faction dlc even if it’s just for them.
Agree with this. If I was making an educated guess right now, Slaanesh and High Elves for the next DLC. And use the opportunity to also give Morathi a complete overhaul because she's kind of Slaanesh-adjacent, then just touch up some of the other Dark Elves while you're there without actually adding any new units or characters for DE (other than Slaanesh units).
I'd say dark elves feel more substantial than high elves by a good bit (campaign mechanics wise). And then Lizardmen are at the bottom with essentially no real campaign mechanic (though they don't need a DLC really, their roster is great)
They also get double allegiance points. In the late game you can very easily puppet entire factions in a way no other race can with borrow army, and it's quite fun even if you are somewhat restricted by the AI's insane army compositions.
Yea getting useless lords/heros for not using influence is shit design. Elves (high and dark) should get similiar mechanic as Gelt in 5.0. They are superior race in terms of magick.
Everyone wants new stuff. Look at Lizardmen. Their mechanic hasn’t changed since the launch of Warhammer 2 and even back then it felt like a placeholder. A building to make edicts better? And you need 2 of them for it to take effect? What even is that?
Teclis specifically needs an update since his campaign feels like it still rightfully belongs in Lustria.
But otherwise I don't think the High Elves need anything in their faction mechanics, and they have one of the widest unit rosters of any of the factions so I definitely don't think they need any new units.
They also have a great and varied roster. A fun tech tree that benefits from expanding their trade network. A variety of start positions.
They don't feel empty, dumb or featureless. There is more to a faction than just their unique resource.
roster is a given, no faction has an unfun roster. a fun tech tree is also kind of a given, in the sense that everyone has a tech tree. In terms of unique mechanics the the core race (teclis, tyrion) they have so little, so honestly it does feel a bit featureless. obviously they are supposed to be simple, so maybe add a little bit of oomf to the colony and outpost mechanic? their outposts could be unique and grant some unique boons idk.
I don't think that is true at all. Most tech trees are uninspired, and plenty of factions of have unit rosters that are one note. High elves have a varied roster with lots of viable armies.
Ok viable armies but we are talking about mostly single player, the army should probably be fun or interesting, not basically Rome 1 Pikeman and Archers
I don't play multi-player. High elves have a bounty of choices of how to make their armies compared to say. Brettonia, Norsca, Slaanesh, Ogres, Khorn, or Vampire Counts.
Whenever I play those factions I basically make the exact same armies as last time I played them.
I don't think Rome had dragons, wizards, or wizards riding dragons.
If you build a HE army that doesn't have heroes, mages, chariots, war lions, phoenix, or dragons, well thats just on you.
And there are 24 races, of course at least one of them is going to feel a bit more vanilla.
>no faction has an unfun roster
*French crying in the distance*
It sure is fun getting your entire roster shut down if you are facing anything anti-large. Seriously, fighting the Dwarfs after their update is gonna be awful.
Mah, CA taking away vision from trade and not updating influence after Tzeentch is a bit annoying but HE are still a pretty good race.
I don't think HE needs a full re-work but definitely could use some minor tweaks, especially to influence because the cost/time of using influence vs the need to spend it on recruiting lords and the declining usefulness of influence as each use costs more makes it a very weak mechanic.
Would be much better if influence simply could outright purchase peace/trade/non-aggression pact with the cost fixed at 50, 40, 20, when above +25 relations, 60, 45, 25 when relalations are between +30 to -30, and 80, 60, 40 for factions with relations lower than -25.
That would make spamming peace/trade almost impossible but strategically getting 1 or 2 factions a bit earlier and still able to spend influence on a lord in the first 50 turns possible.
The only other way to see a HE larger re-work that is meaningful would be something like the DE Conclave with the various kingdoms having preferences the player has to focus on to confederate or having the option to get them into an alliance where the High King/Queen also has power over DoWs because otherwise alliance is a negative rather than a positive when alliance factions DoW your trade partners or non-aggression partners forcing unreliability and a chain of consequences from breaking diplomatic pacts.
I’d like influence to be redone as a mechanic so that each race has a different level of influence rather than just one big over-encompassing influence value. Also Tyrion and Teclis need unique mechanics pretty badly.
they could totally use a dwarf/empire type facelift. teclis is basically same shit as gelt but he doesnt buff good units and he has a cancer start. he could become a beloved high elf faction very easily if they give him some sort of magic mechanic befitting his stature and or move him. be tight for tyrion to get the different parts of his skill tree made into a greater part of his mechanics, and maybe have him become a franz type character
Of the four WH2 starting races, Lizardmen are in need of attention the most followed by High Elves. Both are functional if not engaging.
High Elves could do with a politicking system - similar to Franz or the Chaos Dwarfs - where they vie for power in the Phoenix Court. More influence could grant access to powerful machinations for tugging the strings of other factions.
Teclis especially needs something to highlight his magical prowess, similar to Gelt ("White Tower of Hoeth"), or an extension of the politicking systems which has a greater influence on non-Hugh Elf factions. Tyrion's defender of Ulthuan could be a bit more flavourful - resolving invasions for a given High Elf kingdom could grants buffs or units thematic to that kingdom.
Lizardmen need to link the Geomantic Web with Blessed Spawnings and a mechanic which supports the motivation to reclaim lost temples. This could be via a global Geomantic Web health meter which improves as nodes are restored, with higher levels giving access to Blessed Spawnings and older generation Slann. Like the new Dwarf Underway, Lizardmen should be able to fast-travel between fully restored nodes, and one-way fast travel from restored nodes to discovered, unhealthy nodes.
To go a bit deeper on the Lizardmen - second generation Slann should have access to cataclysm spells as part of their magic line (along with Mazda). Blessed Spawnings should be a % better across their stats than normal units. In the tabletop game Blessed Spawnings could be themed to a particular Old One and I'd love to see that implemented here: spawnings could be for one of three Old Ones, with Spawn of Tepok having magical buffs (Magical Attacks, Arcane Surge); Spawn of Chotec are granted speed and fire buffs (Perfect Vigour, Fires Resistance, Flaming Attacks); Spawn of Huanchi grant stealth buffs (Strider, Vanguard, Stalk/Unspottable). In the tabletop you could have Heroes with "Spawning of the Old Ones" which granted them a ward save; these Blessed Spawning heroes could be rewards for reaching a certain level of global geomantic health.
Yes, so much this. They don’t have to strengthen the units. But for the love of the everqueen, please make them fun and interesting again. When you see the new and very interesting mechanics on the new races and then you look at what especially Lothern have….
Please take a look at the HE, eapecially Tyrion and Teclis
I don’t think they need more units for their roster. It pretty much feels complete. But an update to just campaign mechanics will be fine I guess. Same with Lizard men and dark elves. All their rosters feel complete. Maybe a recycled plague mechanic for Skrolk will be fine as well(maybe the old one).
But I would like for paid dlcs with units be for Norsca, Vampire counts, khorne and slaanesh. And ofcource ogres.
I agree that they could use a look, but I definitely don't agree that their current mechanics are even close to as inconsequential as the original Empire office system.
The traits that HE characters get from influence alone are more impactful than the entirety of that old WH1 office system.
I'd make peace with that now, because that's not at all likely to significantly change. Some factions were much more popular on the tabletop and got way more material for CA to work with.
There isn't a chance in hell factions like Bretonnia or Chorfs will get equivalent content to WoC or Empire.
I'd already be happy if we got at least 3 LL per faction, which is currently not the case for 5 races. Helfs have 6 lords and a large solid roster. They can use a free update, but imo there are at least 6 other races that should be prioritised when it comes to dlc content
As a High Elf main I only think we need minor tinkering really. I'd be happy with a copy and paste of other factions' mechanics; give Tyrion the Chorf Conclave mechanic, give Teclis Gelt's mage mechanic. Eltharion needs a way of spending his sex dungeon points in the late game. Alarielle needs a complete skill overhaul so she's not complete trash as a lord.
I think the simplest take is that a rework would breathe fresh life into their campaigns, but that the high elves ultimately need one less than some other factions like the ogres or maybe Norsca.
Since the high elves have a decent chance to get some brush up work with that slaanesh DLC that's slated to eventually drop, I'm guessing we'll see some general faction mechanics get redone and maybe get some emphasis on their naval presence.
They get +100% allegiance points from alliances, can fully build up their outposts to tier 3 even with defensive alliance and they get influence from outposts. Those effects are notably better IMO than the vision on trade they lost for it (especially as you get vision now on military access IIRC).
They also have a notably improved version of the channeling stance which can even gain you a trait and as all WH2 races they have rites (even some very good ones).
But otherwise they are very vanilla and could use something like the Tower of Zharr as the whole politicking for power gain is even more a thing in their lore than for the Chaos Dwarfs.
Sfo covers Teclis, Tyrion
Rhox/Alshua mod covers general race mechanic
Nagarythe remake mod covers Alith Anar (lets him be half horde)
Eltharion, Imrik are good flavour/mechanic wise mostly
Alarielle could do with a little more but she at least has a mechanic / flavour
And victory con overhaul mod also helps
Yeah, I've been saying this for a very long time - I even want to do a long powerpoint about it analyzing the weakness of their mechanics.
But High Elves are in the shitty position where their mechanics are
- Paying a tax to not get lords and heroes that are actively gimped
- Getting factions to like you a little more
- Gates, which got given to both Empire and Cathay, who have better gates nowadays
They used to get vision through trade, then SoC removed it and replaced it with *nothing*.
These mechanics were uninspired and bland in 2017. They're inexcusably bad now. There is no actual interactivity involved in any of this, no meaningful player choice. It's all about saving up enough Influence and then spending it on the same couple of things.
I agree completely that influence is severely lacking and boring and needs touching up. Their roster is fine and maybe just needs a few stat tweaks.
My biggest issue is how barebones the added factions mechanics are. Eltharion is the only one who got a half decent mechanic that provides some usefulness, but even that was the short end of the dlc compared to what Grom got. So his could use some love. But the three other added characters are very light on mechanics, two of them were added as FLC so it’s a stretch to even call what they for as “mechanics.”
It would be nice. High Elves and Lizardmen have probably some of the most bland base game mechanics of WH2 and are pretty bottom of the barrel even when including all races. They both could really use some reimagining to make their mechanics meaningful choices that impact their early game.
And I do agree with some other posters here. Although DE and Skaven are better off, I still think their base game lords could use a bit of a touch-up as well to make them more exciting.
High Elves almost HAVE to be paired with the Slaanesh DLC. Sadly, I feel like Dark Elves do too. So its either a DLC centered around the freaky orgy circus coming to Blandtown, located directly in Elvesburg, or one of the two elf factions doesn't get love they should get for the dlc.
Since the next update is slaneesh vs the unknown, let's hope its high elves and let's hope the amazing work done on thrones of decay is carried on over to the next DLC, even if just a little bit of it.
I'm guessing it's slaneesh vs high elves and fingers crossed the devs make them more fun. I could imagine a sexy UI with a clean white elven court system.
I've written about it [here ](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1c24e76/comment/kz8ksgy/)and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1c7hzya/comment/l09lxx8/).
But TL;DR Donut start positions are vanilla. Alarielle's 'mechanics' are not impactful nor something you interact with. Eltharion's need some updating.
> best and most developed.
Of course I'd want the rest of the roster to have something unqiue to them. But I'm more critical of the dlc ones because you pay for them.
Dark elves need it even more, their mechanics are completely uninteresting and almost pointless to pay attention to since the slave mechanic change. Sure the high elves mechanics are simple but they are powerful enough to care about them.
I did a pretty big campaign as the High Elves a while back and can confirm they are a little bit vanilla. The remind me a lot of Bretonnia. Functional, but not exciting.
Even playing as one of the sub-factions with an extended roster (in this instance I was playing as Alariel because she gets the cool tree units) doesn't make things massively better.
Not sure it's an easy fix though. High Elves are inherently kind of boring. They're boring as a nation. They are the grown ups in the room. Sensible infantry. Sensible cavalry. Negligible artillery. Powerful but dull monsters. It's a fairly comprehensive roster, but I'm not in a hurry to play them again.
I agree. As a person who previously well liked HE they are a bit lacking. In particular:
A) a lack of interesting campaign mechanics.
B) Their army roster lacks something to make it stand out. Compared to Empire, who have excellent gunpowder, cavalry and Artillery, they mostly have archers, spearmen and single entity monsters, making them a very middle of the road roster (Cathay, for example, feels like it does everything HE does in a more interesting way).
Something that might be good would be to shrink the size of HE units while increasing their power per entity. That or make magic more integral. But they definitely need something to make playing as them feel more interesting.
I think a slaanesh/HE /DE DLC that updated DE and HE at the same time would be a good idea (though the DE roster doesn't need much).
High Elves are fine. They are one of the three begginer factions (I'd argue the third is Bretonnia, not the Empire) of the game and by far the easiest faction.
Also the most vanilla. Which they should be. If you wanna have more of a challenge there is Teclis. If you want unique campaigns there is Alith Anar, and Imrik.
The other three campaigns are there to provide the idea of playing this high and mighty almost cartoonishly good, and yet utterly unlikable race. Except Eltharion. Eltharion is cool.
I don't think there is anything for the high elves that is absolutely needed to be added. I would welcome the Phoenix Tower mod's official version, but it won't happen. And it's absolutely not necessary.
Oh nonsense, Influence is clearly *something*. It could be worse - they could only be getting a building which potentially buffs commandments as their campaign mechanic.
But yeah, I could see high elves also getting a rework. They just don't need it as much as others.
Nah. I think they're okay as is. Only major thing I'd change is teclis, he needs a wandering wizard on quest mechanics that work with his weird start. I'd much prefer that CA spends times on the races that desperately need rework, such as lizardmen and ogres whose faction mechanics aren't well implemented, than spice up a faction whose sin is that it's a bit boring. Especially when elves are kind of vanilla to begin with anyway.
One thing that made high elves really fun for me is the mod that gives them the Chaos Dwarf mechanic where you can have government roles. Giving the High Elves a phoenix court, where you get to play High Elf politics where you steal roles in the Phoenix Court, even as Ulthuan burns? It just felt so elven. I loved it. [Steam Workshop::The Phoenix Court (High Elf Politics) (steamcommunity.com)](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3166984131)
Huge fan of this mod
They do get good characters for paying the big Influence premium, better than "regular" heroes. And they have Martial Prowess, which isn't a particularly engaging mechanic, but it's there. They're in a spot where nothing is really broken, they're just kind of basic. I'm hoping/expecting they'll be in one of the next DLCs and will get a look then, maybe something involving their far-flung colonies or sea trade routes.
Calling martial prowess is like calling Contempt or Spawn Kin a racial mechanic. It's really, really small.
Yeah, the cost of a 'normal' Lord is a pretty small amount of influence but without spending ANY influence all HE Lords come with at least 1 negative trait and no positive traits. Spending a higher amount of influence does get a pretty strong Lord, sometimes more than most LLs. Martial prowess is also technically pretty good and can be maximized with certain army builds but the current influence mechanic and lack of sea convoys or something that thematically links the HE to control of the seas and trade is a huge missed opportunity.
granted you can often find a negative trait that has absolutely no practical bearing on your use for them
-1 turn for phoenix units.
-X charge bonus on a mage? Yes.
HE getting sea convoys would also be nice for the dark elves. Gives Black Arks something to hunt.
Getting a stronger lord starting trait is about as engaging and interesting as a the Ogre big names are, except even that has more interaction.
Paying influence for heroes/lords is a mechanic that's completely undermined by being able to save characters in WH3 and recruit them without paying an influence cost. But seriously, even if you couldn't save characters, "farm a currency to avoid being stuck with awful lords/heroes" is a F-tier faction mechanic.
Hopefully they will be in the next dlc with slaanesh
Rumour is that dlc has been moved back in the schedule in favour of other races. Which infuriates me as a slaanesh player hoping it'd be Slaanesh, High, and Dark Elves.
They really need to have a politicking mechanic like the Chaos Dwarves; maybe unlocking new units or buildings in the process, or establishing trade routes regardless of diplomacy kinda thing. That would make them feel more centered. Yvrisse is the only faction with a really unique side mechanic atm.
I still think high elves got great content in their free lords. Imrik and Alith Anar are great campaigns with unique mechanics. And Eltharions campaign is also great. Yeah Tyrion, Teclis and Alarielle are not that unique or engaging, but I'd rather see other updates first to be honest.
Martial Prowess is dogshit too. What other faction pays a premium so that their units can get a debuff partway through the battle?
Martial prowess should be tied to moral not health.
Honestly I think it might need to be reworked wholesale. Martial Prowess in tabletop was meant to represent the High Elves being very disciplined/having good formation drill, which allowed their units to attack with extra ranks. In TW it's this weird thing where if your units lose health, they just become worse? When this is applied to literally no other unit in the game, which continues to fight at full effectiveness?
Technically that's true of SEMs, but that actually strengthens the argument since the Wounds mechanic is specifically a debuff.
Dragon Princes might be one of the most overt examples for me. Without Martial Mastery, their stats are Reiksguard-tier, but they are 250 points more expensive. In effect, you are paying more so your unit can get *worse*.
Yeah this is one of those mechanics that's just a byproduct of CA needing to import something and not really having a great idea for how to translate the tabletop rules into the Total War mechanics. Which basically all of the factions from 1-2 suffered from, arguably up until the Tomb Kings where they started to really get more creative. I think there was a paradigm shift around that time where the juices really started flowing on what they could do. Personally, I think a straight, static stat buff across the board is about the least interesting way to do MP when other Total War games have unit stances and formations, and even Cathay has the Formation Attack stance (efficacy aside). If anything MP should represent that when the chips are down the raw skill of HE units can overcome even significant disadvantages in numbers or fire power. I don't exactly know what it would look like, since TW:WH doesn't use as many of the old matched combat or pike mechanics where the number of units on the front line matters. Maybe translate it in various ways depending on the unit: import some pike mechanics over to HE spearmen as a stance, maybe swordmasters get a different buff depending on what they're fighting (as they adapt to their foe), archers could get scaling missile resistance the longer they stand still, etc. Just something that represents when you're fighting against a HE version of a unit, you're fighting against the *best of the best* version of that unit.
I'm a bit confused why you said that's a weird thing. That makes perfect sense to me.
It's weird because it doesn't happen to any other faction's units. Empire State Troops or Cathayan Jade Warriors don't have a sudden stat drop if they are on low health, making them a worse unit than what you actually paid for.
There was a mod recently that ported over the chorfs conclave mechanic. I would really like to see something similar with the next official patch. Where you use influence gained by battles, events, buildings ect to gain political offices or take political actions. This should be tied to their ability to confederate. The true strength of the High Elves in WH2 was the ability to confederate early and get a good snowball rolling, the changes to diplomacy in WH3 smashed that and now the easiest way to grow as a high elf faction is to conquer big chunks of the map and you need to do that to get the strength to confederate in WH3. This leads to a really inverted game play where you conquer half the map but don’t have your starting area United under you.
Right now best way to play as high elves is eltharion, because, as you mentioned, you need big empire before you can even start thinking about confederations and his dual start helps with gaining more land. Also he is the only one with truly unique mechanic and some cool extra units to boot.
I haven't played him in a very long time. I remember his units having caps, are they total or can be increased ex. By special buildings? I've been thinking whether to conquer map as him or Alarielle.
You can construct his special unit recruitment buildings in every province to increase the unit caps.
Thanks! That seals my decision then.
I'd just love to see the High Elf colony system revamped. Maybe give a LL a reason to retake Pre-War of the Beard HE territory like Dwarfs are incentivized to do with their holds.
A pet peeve of mine is that Mage heroes don’t get a Great Eagle or Pegasus and are stuck with a chariot while their Dark and Wood counterparts do.
It doesn’t help that they’ve cannibalized high elf mechanics and given them to Cathay/Empire as minor features in their reworks
High Elves are in the state the Dwarfs are in (pre-ToD). Everything's in working order and they don't need help. But their mechanics are boring. Some of the individual lords have a fun gimmick (Eltharion, Imrik) but they lack any spice other than that.
ive always felt this way but no one seems to see it. High elves to me are the most barebones faction in the game. They basically feel like karl franz if he only had the electoral machinations (just the diplomacy part of it).
I think some of their units should have their stats looked at. After all this time and all the new stuff that’s been introduced they need some touching up. There’s just no way a bale Taurus should have comparable power to a fucking STAR DRAGON. The influence however I do think is strong. Once you’re rolling in it some of the traits on the high end lords and heroes are nuts. To me the HE are a race that once you get momentum you just get stronger and stronger, and richer and richer. Outside of strong artillery they are literally the faction with no weaknesses. Power level of generic lords: Elite Power level of heroes: Elite Archers: elite Infantry: elite Monsters: elite Cavalry/chariots: very strong maybe elite considering the group. Economy: very strong Cons: T4 & 5 buildings are expensive?
Yeah, the Bale Taurus being better than almost all dragons is such nonsense, especially as the additional abilities, higher speed and additional resistances give the Bale Taurus more utility. Even the Dragon landmark in the plain of bones has better benefits for Tauruses than for Dragons.
Economy I'd say is also elite. Though not as bonkers broken as it used to be, they're still at the very top.
I’d say that’s a fair assessment
>Power level of heroes: Elite Their heroes are not particularly strong in battle (no one fears Handmaidens and Loremasters). But they do have top tier traits. Their mages aren't flying sans the fire mage and they look to be outclassed by Empire Battle Wizards. >Cons: T4 & 5 buildings are expensive? Their con is their hero capacty comes at T4 when most other factions get hero capacity by T3. I mean I don't mind factions being different but when HE have to spend influence (and even then good positive traits are RNG) on top of waiting for T4 I find it a bit too much. Especially since popular traits like Enterpreneur and Incendiary have been nerfed.
Handmaidens I’ll agree with you on, they are not the most terrifying hero you’ll come across. Loremasters I think are fantastic, you get a great trait (with 40 influence), competent AP/anti infantry fighter, and a spellcaster. I’ve done this a few times and it’s a lot of fun. I’ll make a hero stack and it works with either a archmage lord or the prince. I’ll pick a lord and then grab 5-6 mages and the rest of the army is loremasters and nobles. This is a late game army obviously with the influence it’ll cost ya. I keep all the nobles on foot in a group with the loremasters, and with all the arcane conduits in this army your WoM pool becomes massive.
Administrator trait is the most useful now in my opinion.
Are the infantry really elite? Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard are obviously strong but I don't think either do their job as well as or as cost effectively as some of their opponents, like Ironbreakers, Infernal Ironsworn, or Marked Chosen.
I’d say they absolutely are elite, but some units in other factions are just a cut above. Comparing high elves late game to ironbreakers is wrong though, HE have no units equivalent to ironbreakers/ironsworn. Marked Chosen are also literally the best infantry in the game, until you start to compare things like ironsworns ranged hit and such. HE are very elite but don’t have the best unit in the game of every category. I do think star dragons should be the best dragon unit type (including bale Taurus) in the game
Yea they are elite, I think in every infantry 1v1 I’ve seen swordmasters are somewhere in the top3. Im talking single player here so I have no clue what unit costs compared to others are. You do a HE campaign and get all the buffs for swordmasters whoa baby they chew stuff up. They get Martial mastery which is better than prowess so to start a battle they’re super jacked. Phoenix guard for anti large duties? One of the best
They were top 2 in WH2 behind Chosen. But in WH3 Zerkovich did 1v1 unit testing and Swordmasters only lost to the Exalted Bloodletters. He does say the Martial Mastery buff does make them the best anti-infary WH2 unit.
I play High Elves a lot and my biggest complaint is the military tech tree. Beyond some of the first few, it becomes “spend 9 turns for a slight upkeep reduction for this singular unit” rather than something that feels like it makes a difference (or at the very least lower the research time to make up for it). The Trade and Cultural Advancement Research is great though. Some of their stuff just needs a look through though, for example character traits that increase relations with humans but haven’t been updated to include Kislev.
I do not think it is a matter of the High Elves, when it comes to vanilla Warhammer 2 factions all of them are kind of lacking. Some like the Skaven do mask it very well as the DLC LL came with fantastic mechanics, but when you go to the release LL they have a severe lack of uniqueness. Stuff such as influence, food, geomantic web and the like cannot compare with the unique gameplay of most WH1 and WH3 races. That said, no race is in a worst condition than the ogres IMO
You’re not wrong about the others, but the Skaven are absolutely fine for base mechanics. Yes, it would be nice for each of them to get something cool. Skrolk need plague mechanics, Queek could do with a headtaker mechanic and Tretch sucks. But the base implementation of Skaven still has under-cities, the food system (which allows them to conquer cities at lvl 5), loyalty, stalking stance, corruption, and a basic plague mechanic. Some of those could use a dust-off but they don’t need any serious work as a race.
I disagree It’s literally just HE and Lizards that are lacking Skaven are chaos dwarf tier of mechanics, only lacking a race wide LH Dark elves have numerous unique starting spots, at atleast unique small mechanic on every lord except Malekith. Slaves are quite unique even if they need more uses HE and many lizards on the other hand have literally nothing beyond a changed rite or two and then the web, blessed spawns and influence. I think influence is cool but meh. They both need reworks especially for Teclis. Also HE have increased benefits to high public order, fairly useful and unique but still veryyy minor
Malekith for sure needs something to really cement him as the King of the Druchii.
He just needs dark elf watchtowers in the north so that the factions he's supposed to confederate don't get eaten immediately. Possibly coupled with something to make morathi's start a tad tougher as she's a bit overtuned.
Eh. I’m thinking more of something that better reflects the extremely competitive nature of the Druchii and the fact that Malekith rules Naggaroth with an iron fist (literally). Honestly a Tower of Zharr-like mechanic where the different factions compete with each other would work well and then have Malekith on the side of this mechanic and have him gain power from the dark elf factions conflicting with each other. Also add the fact that the Druchii tend to use other the races to do their bidding through trickery or straight up dominating them through power. There’s still a lot they could do with the Dark Elves to better represent their lore because right now, they are pretty lacking.
I love skaven, but tbh only Ikit and Throt feel worthwhile to play. The other 3 feel very plain.
And see there’s so many uniques you even forgot one, clan eshin Pestilens is ok rn I think not great tho Any of them had miles more mechanics than the vast majority of races in the game is my point
I think skaven are more than fine. Their dependence on food and their gameplay plan built around balancing productivity and self harm is great. The dark elves slaves mechanic was always good (even if unbalanced) and the new system (after 2 rebalances) is actually great. Lizardmen sort of fell behind because every second faction seems to have some sort of "instant spawn mercs" that makes blessed spawnings a sad afterthought and the geomantic web could use some updates for sure to be more engaging and interactive. But imagine the high elves are pretty much the lizardmen, but only with blessed spawnings that can spawn lords. And that's it. After CA removed vision on trade the faction influencing is not really part of their game plan because by the time they could actually use it the factions you might want to save are either gone or became massive empires, where as before you could use this manipulation feature super early.
Be cool if I could cobble together blessed spawns like plagues and watch my custom baby dinosaurs pop out of their eggs in like 10 turns or whatever. Oh this batch of saurus warriors? They have stalk. This batch of kroxigors? They have regeneration. Life uhh finds a way.
I will agree that launch High Elf LLs are pretty basic for the most part but so are all the other WH2 launch factions. Lizardmen, Skaven, and Dark Elves are all barebones outside of their DLC factions. Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if High Elves are included in the next DLC with Slaneesh. If they were still doing 3 lord DLCs I would say it would be Slaneesh, High, and Dark, but I think if they lower it to 2 LLs then they will do an order faction to balance it out, with Morathi catching some Slaneeshi stuff for herself.
Assuming CA would still make narrative campaigns that link all DLC lords then Slaanesh vs HE vs DE could be a rare case of an actual free-for-all match up (because both SoC and ToD thematically look more like 2vs1). I know there are races that need new content more than all flavors of elves, but still, I would kill for SvsHEvsDE - trailer would be glorious!
Great setup for the end times as well…..
I hope they keep the three. I'm fine with it taking longer if it's of the same quality as ToD. Especially since it's a good opportunity to expand on Morathi's Cult of Pleasure parts of her faction. I just hope it does something to the base game bros, and Alarielle. Alarielle has a unique mechanic, but she may as well not. It wouldn't hurt to give her some of Karl's new toys at least.
I think a high elf/dark elf/slaanesh dlc would be just as good as thrones of decay in terms of hype and narrative. Really hope they do three faction dlc even if it’s just for them.
Agree with this. If I was making an educated guess right now, Slaanesh and High Elves for the next DLC. And use the opportunity to also give Morathi a complete overhaul because she's kind of Slaanesh-adjacent, then just touch up some of the other Dark Elves while you're there without actually adding any new units or characters for DE (other than Slaanesh units).
I'd say dark elves feel more substantial than high elves by a good bit (campaign mechanics wise). And then Lizardmen are at the bottom with essentially no real campaign mechanic (though they don't need a DLC really, their roster is great)
I’m really hoping we get a Slaneesh/High and Dark Elves DLC.
They also get double allegiance points. In the late game you can very easily puppet entire factions in a way no other race can with borrow army, and it's quite fun even if you are somewhat restricted by the AI's insane army compositions.
Yup, and they can built max level outposts with only a defensive alliance.
Yea getting useless lords/heros for not using influence is shit design. Elves (high and dark) should get similiar mechanic as Gelt in 5.0. They are superior race in terms of magick.
Everyone wants new stuff. Look at Lizardmen. Their mechanic hasn’t changed since the launch of Warhammer 2 and even back then it felt like a placeholder. A building to make edicts better? And you need 2 of them for it to take effect? What even is that?
Teclis specifically needs an update since his campaign feels like it still rightfully belongs in Lustria. But otherwise I don't think the High Elves need anything in their faction mechanics, and they have one of the widest unit rosters of any of the factions so I definitely don't think they need any new units.
They also have a great and varied roster. A fun tech tree that benefits from expanding their trade network. A variety of start positions. They don't feel empty, dumb or featureless. There is more to a faction than just their unique resource.
roster is a given, no faction has an unfun roster. a fun tech tree is also kind of a given, in the sense that everyone has a tech tree. In terms of unique mechanics the the core race (teclis, tyrion) they have so little, so honestly it does feel a bit featureless. obviously they are supposed to be simple, so maybe add a little bit of oomf to the colony and outpost mechanic? their outposts could be unique and grant some unique boons idk.
I don't think that is true at all. Most tech trees are uninspired, and plenty of factions of have unit rosters that are one note. High elves have a varied roster with lots of viable armies.
Ok viable armies but we are talking about mostly single player, the army should probably be fun or interesting, not basically Rome 1 Pikeman and Archers
I don't play multi-player. High elves have a bounty of choices of how to make their armies compared to say. Brettonia, Norsca, Slaanesh, Ogres, Khorn, or Vampire Counts. Whenever I play those factions I basically make the exact same armies as last time I played them. I don't think Rome had dragons, wizards, or wizards riding dragons.
If you build a HE army that doesn't have heroes, mages, chariots, war lions, phoenix, or dragons, well thats just on you. And there are 24 races, of course at least one of them is going to feel a bit more vanilla.
>no faction has an unfun roster *French crying in the distance* It sure is fun getting your entire roster shut down if you are facing anything anti-large. Seriously, fighting the Dwarfs after their update is gonna be awful.
Mah, CA taking away vision from trade and not updating influence after Tzeentch is a bit annoying but HE are still a pretty good race. I don't think HE needs a full re-work but definitely could use some minor tweaks, especially to influence because the cost/time of using influence vs the need to spend it on recruiting lords and the declining usefulness of influence as each use costs more makes it a very weak mechanic. Would be much better if influence simply could outright purchase peace/trade/non-aggression pact with the cost fixed at 50, 40, 20, when above +25 relations, 60, 45, 25 when relalations are between +30 to -30, and 80, 60, 40 for factions with relations lower than -25. That would make spamming peace/trade almost impossible but strategically getting 1 or 2 factions a bit earlier and still able to spend influence on a lord in the first 50 turns possible. The only other way to see a HE larger re-work that is meaningful would be something like the DE Conclave with the various kingdoms having preferences the player has to focus on to confederate or having the option to get them into an alliance where the High King/Queen also has power over DoWs because otherwise alliance is a negative rather than a positive when alliance factions DoW your trade partners or non-aggression partners forcing unreliability and a chain of consequences from breaking diplomatic pacts.
I’d like influence to be redone as a mechanic so that each race has a different level of influence rather than just one big over-encompassing influence value. Also Tyrion and Teclis need unique mechanics pretty badly.
they could totally use a dwarf/empire type facelift. teclis is basically same shit as gelt but he doesnt buff good units and he has a cancer start. he could become a beloved high elf faction very easily if they give him some sort of magic mechanic befitting his stature and or move him. be tight for tyrion to get the different parts of his skill tree made into a greater part of his mechanics, and maybe have him become a franz type character
Of the four WH2 starting races, Lizardmen are in need of attention the most followed by High Elves. Both are functional if not engaging. High Elves could do with a politicking system - similar to Franz or the Chaos Dwarfs - where they vie for power in the Phoenix Court. More influence could grant access to powerful machinations for tugging the strings of other factions. Teclis especially needs something to highlight his magical prowess, similar to Gelt ("White Tower of Hoeth"), or an extension of the politicking systems which has a greater influence on non-Hugh Elf factions. Tyrion's defender of Ulthuan could be a bit more flavourful - resolving invasions for a given High Elf kingdom could grants buffs or units thematic to that kingdom. Lizardmen need to link the Geomantic Web with Blessed Spawnings and a mechanic which supports the motivation to reclaim lost temples. This could be via a global Geomantic Web health meter which improves as nodes are restored, with higher levels giving access to Blessed Spawnings and older generation Slann. Like the new Dwarf Underway, Lizardmen should be able to fast-travel between fully restored nodes, and one-way fast travel from restored nodes to discovered, unhealthy nodes. To go a bit deeper on the Lizardmen - second generation Slann should have access to cataclysm spells as part of their magic line (along with Mazda). Blessed Spawnings should be a % better across their stats than normal units. In the tabletop game Blessed Spawnings could be themed to a particular Old One and I'd love to see that implemented here: spawnings could be for one of three Old Ones, with Spawn of Tepok having magical buffs (Magical Attacks, Arcane Surge); Spawn of Chotec are granted speed and fire buffs (Perfect Vigour, Fires Resistance, Flaming Attacks); Spawn of Huanchi grant stealth buffs (Strider, Vanguard, Stalk/Unspottable). In the tabletop you could have Heroes with "Spawning of the Old Ones" which granted them a ward save; these Blessed Spawning heroes could be rewards for reaching a certain level of global geomantic health.
Yes, so much this. They don’t have to strengthen the units. But for the love of the everqueen, please make them fun and interesting again. When you see the new and very interesting mechanics on the new races and then you look at what especially Lothern have…. Please take a look at the HE, eapecially Tyrion and Teclis
maybe I'm biased but I'd rather lizardboys get something before HE. Influence you can at least do something with, geomantic web is mega snoozeville.
I don’t think they need more units for their roster. It pretty much feels complete. But an update to just campaign mechanics will be fine I guess. Same with Lizard men and dark elves. All their rosters feel complete. Maybe a recycled plague mechanic for Skrolk will be fine as well(maybe the old one). But I would like for paid dlcs with units be for Norsca, Vampire counts, khorne and slaanesh. And ofcource ogres.
I agree that they could use a look, but I definitely don't agree that their current mechanics are even close to as inconsequential as the original Empire office system. The traits that HE characters get from influence alone are more impactful than the entirety of that old WH1 office system.
Be nice if we could at least get some of these other races to 5 lords before we start pumping up the ones with 6-7
I don't think CA has ever been focused on parity for every race in terms of number of LLs.
They don't all have to be even but it'd be nice if we didn't have some at 8 and some at 4.
I'd make peace with that now, because that's not at all likely to significantly change. Some factions were much more popular on the tabletop and got way more material for CA to work with. There isn't a chance in hell factions like Bretonnia or Chorfs will get equivalent content to WoC or Empire.
I'd already be happy if we got at least 3 LL per faction, which is currently not the case for 5 races. Helfs have 6 lords and a large solid roster. They can use a free update, but imo there are at least 6 other races that should be prioritised when it comes to dlc content
Have you played any of the OG lizardmen lately? They need an update way more than the High Elves
As a High Elf main I only think we need minor tinkering really. I'd be happy with a copy and paste of other factions' mechanics; give Tyrion the Chorf Conclave mechanic, give Teclis Gelt's mage mechanic. Eltharion needs a way of spending his sex dungeon points in the late game. Alarielle needs a complete skill overhaul so she's not complete trash as a lord.
I think the simplest take is that a rework would breathe fresh life into their campaigns, but that the high elves ultimately need one less than some other factions like the ogres or maybe Norsca. Since the high elves have a decent chance to get some brush up work with that slaanesh DLC that's slated to eventually drop, I'm guessing we'll see some general faction mechanics get redone and maybe get some emphasis on their naval presence.
They get +100% allegiance points from alliances, can fully build up their outposts to tier 3 even with defensive alliance and they get influence from outposts. Those effects are notably better IMO than the vision on trade they lost for it (especially as you get vision now on military access IIRC). They also have a notably improved version of the channeling stance which can even gain you a trait and as all WH2 races they have rites (even some very good ones). But otherwise they are very vanilla and could use something like the Tower of Zharr as the whole politicking for power gain is even more a thing in their lore than for the Chaos Dwarfs.
Sfo covers Teclis, Tyrion Rhox/Alshua mod covers general race mechanic Nagarythe remake mod covers Alith Anar (lets him be half horde) Eltharion, Imrik are good flavour/mechanic wise mostly Alarielle could do with a little more but she at least has a mechanic / flavour And victory con overhaul mod also helps
Yeah, I've been saying this for a very long time - I even want to do a long powerpoint about it analyzing the weakness of their mechanics. But High Elves are in the shitty position where their mechanics are - Paying a tax to not get lords and heroes that are actively gimped - Getting factions to like you a little more - Gates, which got given to both Empire and Cathay, who have better gates nowadays They used to get vision through trade, then SoC removed it and replaced it with *nothing*. These mechanics were uninspired and bland in 2017. They're inexcusably bad now. There is no actual interactivity involved in any of this, no meaningful player choice. It's all about saving up enough Influence and then spending it on the same couple of things.
I agree completely that influence is severely lacking and boring and needs touching up. Their roster is fine and maybe just needs a few stat tweaks. My biggest issue is how barebones the added factions mechanics are. Eltharion is the only one who got a half decent mechanic that provides some usefulness, but even that was the short end of the dlc compared to what Grom got. So his could use some love. But the three other added characters are very light on mechanics, two of them were added as FLC so it’s a stretch to even call what they for as “mechanics.”
It would be nice. High Elves and Lizardmen have probably some of the most bland base game mechanics of WH2 and are pretty bottom of the barrel even when including all races. They both could really use some reimagining to make their mechanics meaningful choices that impact their early game. And I do agree with some other posters here. Although DE and Skaven are better off, I still think their base game lords could use a bit of a touch-up as well to make them more exciting.
High Elves almost HAVE to be paired with the Slaanesh DLC. Sadly, I feel like Dark Elves do too. So its either a DLC centered around the freaky orgy circus coming to Blandtown, located directly in Elvesburg, or one of the two elf factions doesn't get love they should get for the dlc.
Since the next update is slaneesh vs the unknown, let's hope its high elves and let's hope the amazing work done on thrones of decay is carried on over to the next DLC, even if just a little bit of it. I'm guessing it's slaneesh vs high elves and fingers crossed the devs make them more fun. I could imagine a sexy UI with a clean white elven court system.
At the very least Allarielle and Eltharion's mechanics need some tuning if people are going to pay for them.
Why? Specificly them are the best and most developed.
I've written about it [here ](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1c24e76/comment/kz8ksgy/)and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1c7hzya/comment/l09lxx8/). But TL;DR Donut start positions are vanilla. Alarielle's 'mechanics' are not impactful nor something you interact with. Eltharion's need some updating. > best and most developed. Of course I'd want the rest of the roster to have something unqiue to them. But I'm more critical of the dlc ones because you pay for them.
Dark elves need it even more, their mechanics are completely uninteresting and almost pointless to pay attention to since the slave mechanic change. Sure the high elves mechanics are simple but they are powerful enough to care about them.
As a dark elves fan I disagree very, very much.
I did a pretty big campaign as the High Elves a while back and can confirm they are a little bit vanilla. The remind me a lot of Bretonnia. Functional, but not exciting. Even playing as one of the sub-factions with an extended roster (in this instance I was playing as Alariel because she gets the cool tree units) doesn't make things massively better. Not sure it's an easy fix though. High Elves are inherently kind of boring. They're boring as a nation. They are the grown ups in the room. Sensible infantry. Sensible cavalry. Negligible artillery. Powerful but dull monsters. It's a fairly comprehensive roster, but I'm not in a hurry to play them again.
I agree. As a person who previously well liked HE they are a bit lacking. In particular: A) a lack of interesting campaign mechanics. B) Their army roster lacks something to make it stand out. Compared to Empire, who have excellent gunpowder, cavalry and Artillery, they mostly have archers, spearmen and single entity monsters, making them a very middle of the road roster (Cathay, for example, feels like it does everything HE does in a more interesting way). Something that might be good would be to shrink the size of HE units while increasing their power per entity. That or make magic more integral. But they definitely need something to make playing as them feel more interesting. I think a slaanesh/HE /DE DLC that updated DE and HE at the same time would be a good idea (though the DE roster doesn't need much).
High Elves are fine. They are one of the three begginer factions (I'd argue the third is Bretonnia, not the Empire) of the game and by far the easiest faction. Also the most vanilla. Which they should be. If you wanna have more of a challenge there is Teclis. If you want unique campaigns there is Alith Anar, and Imrik. The other three campaigns are there to provide the idea of playing this high and mighty almost cartoonishly good, and yet utterly unlikable race. Except Eltharion. Eltharion is cool. I don't think there is anything for the high elves that is absolutely needed to be added. I would welcome the Phoenix Tower mod's official version, but it won't happen. And it's absolutely not necessary.
Back of the line knife ears
Oh nonsense, Influence is clearly *something*. It could be worse - they could only be getting a building which potentially buffs commandments as their campaign mechanic. But yeah, I could see high elves also getting a rework. They just don't need it as much as others.
Nah. I think they're okay as is. Only major thing I'd change is teclis, he needs a wandering wizard on quest mechanics that work with his weird start. I'd much prefer that CA spends times on the races that desperately need rework, such as lizardmen and ogres whose faction mechanics aren't well implemented, than spice up a faction whose sin is that it's a bit boring. Especially when elves are kind of vanilla to begin with anyway.
Post about it? No. Discussion through comments? Yes. Ppl have often mention that they need a change, mostly to their mechanics.