why are dark elves doing so well?

[Bishop]

Nah Magn - i agree with Luc, DE are easy mode - they arent that strong.

[Luc]

SW is not a great op.

1) I did an experiment with some mates and determined that if the DE keeps his mana under 50%, the op is lossy (meaning you spend more steath SW than you make him lose mana)

2) Add to that the fact that you have no mana gauge or the ability to tell how much damage you are doing and the loss just keeps piling on

3) If the target has WTs, an increased % of your ops will also fail making it even more lossy

So, the question becomes: Are you willing to sacrifice the opping ability of, say, 2 halflings to cripple to casting ability of 1 DE?

I already asked for SW to be tweaked so that its less useless (at least give the amount of mana you reduced the target by). It fell on deaf ears.

Why would I have halfers do it? SW is for non a/t's. It's very worth it considering that DEs that can't use their mana are completely useless. Even if I can only kill 50% of the mana they would use, it would still make a whole lot of difference. Humans could easily run a high enough tpa to get through enough to do some decent damage to the DE's, without really making any major sacrifices.

Their armies are on par with hafling and arguably better than gnome. They are also not that far off behind elf/avian/dwarf that good science won't compensate for it.

If you think pumping doesn't help much, then I'll tell you that imho, you are blissfully ignorant of the current realities of the game as the people pushing for nerfing the sage next age will tell you.

Are you seriously suggesting that DEs are such powerhouses that they can outpump the other races to the degree that they don't suck anymore? Then you're way off. They don't get nearly far enough with sci, because they're too **** to keep all that sci. 6/5 with low nw efficiency is not strong in any way, especially not when you also have to run a considerable amount of wizards.

All the 3 races you mentioned have such weak armies that they can barely attack at all without getting slaughtered. Being on par with them isn't all that great. Which is why they're all support races.

For learning, its mostly useful when rapping less able KDs oow and there are 2 obstacles to it:

1) The tactic is contingent on the KD being less able

2) You need to be able to break the DE with elites home.

I've done learn attacks of all defense DE's several times this age already. I'm a human, and since my army doesn't suck, I can safely hit DE's, and keep up with their sci, meaning they will never get even remotely close to a powerful army compared to me. That kinda "I will pump so much that I can cover any racial weakness" attitude only works in theory. Then you run into other people on the server who prove you wrong.

Yeah, well, good for you if you can get everyone on board quickly to finance the dragon.

In my experience, there is always at least an handful of players who are sleeping and can't fund the dragon right away and even after funding the first dragon and waiting for war, some people still have some money left piled up at home.

It's clearly a nerf. I will now simply wait with my wave until most of the kd's cash has been spent. Before, I couldn't do that. The spell is simply far less powerful than it was before.

They are popular because they make a good addition to the team if you know how to play them.

Any kd could do just as well without any DE's. DE's are there because they're easy to play. People are willing to sacrifice a few provs to get easy to run a/m's. More than one race could run exactly the same wpa as a DE, effectively rendering the DE unable to make use of their spell book, and still outgun the DE for military strength. But usually people don't do that, because they never face more than a handful of DE's anyway, so it's not worth it.

[Coke]

SW is not a great op.

1) I did an experiment with some mates and determined that if the DE keeps his mana under 50%, the op is lossy (meaning you spend more steath SW than you make him lose mana)

2) Add to that the fact that you have no mana gauge or the ability to tell how much damage you are doing and the loss just keeps piling on

3) If the target has WTs, an increased % of your ops will also fail making it even more lossy

So, the question becomes: Are you willing to sacrifice the opping ability of, say, 2 halflings to cripple to casting ability of 1 DE?

I already asked for SW to be tweaked so that its less useless (at least give the amount of mana you reduced the target by). It fell on deaf ears.

1. Like Luc said, why would Halfers be doing this?

2. You would prefer 1 prov being able to equally negate another 1 prov's abilities? Then why not just go with max gains 1 v 1 all war? The whole point of the game is to coordinate different KD members. So you get two lower TPA ppl to SW 1 DE and they have no mana .

3. I'm not saying SW is the best op ever, but it's definitely a lot better then what your making it out to be and doesn't need to be powered up.


4. I played DE/Sage set up last round, even with the Insane amount of books I had, couldn't compare to Avian Sages in terms of military. So yes, DE is not a very good race at all. If you think your doing well it's probably because the enemy doesn't view you as a priority and hence just dealing with whatever spells you can cast and bringing down other people whom they think are more dangerous.

[citadela01]

Delf is not meant to be military powerhouse. Pointing out how some1 can smack arround delf with troops home with his human/orc province is just silly, pumped up human/orc can break any1 with troops home ... including himself. They are weaksauce military race on pair with other races with weak units such as halflings and gnomes, and not that far from elves.
On the other hand active delf can not be stoped from casting spells, I emphasize active part cause sw does nothing if you keep your mana low like you should in wars anyway.
They also have 2 very potent unique spells. ToG which is just plain awesome oow and nm's which altho weak on its own have huge potential if coordinated and concetrated by 2-3 delves. Many human with his mighty 100opa/50dpa went down to 500 acres in few hours as a result to a deacent nm run opening him to dt's from entire enemy kd.
No runes is one of best wartime bonuses in the game and any1 playing elf mystic will tell you that I am sure. Saves tons of land, makes you immune to (overpowered) rob towers and is essential for spamming high cost spells like MS or as help to surviving chains with landlusts.
If you are in a kd that doesnt war much and spends age randoming/whoring delfs is bad choice. If you are in warring kd and looking to wreak havoc with high cost spells delf is choice no1.

[Palem]

On the other hand active delf can not be stoped from casting spells

...other than all of the pre-war massacres?

If you are in warring kd and looking to wreak havoc with high cost spells delf is choice no1.

Erm...no. Orc is choice #1.

[citadela01]

Stating delf mage can be disabled with massacres or aw for that matter is kinda moot don't you think ? Any other mage race is just as vulnerable to mass/aw as delf is. Elf has small advantage with CS but the fact most rogues are halfers makes one big dent in that spell.
Since this thread is about why are delfs good/popular choice when compared to other races I obviously ignored massacres and aw as it has nothing to do with race selection. Suggesting that rather generic approach which is perfectly viable against any race makes them in particular bad choice for a/m province is pointless.

Your Orc comment I don't understand at all. Maybe you missed "with high cost spells" part of my statement ?

[Landro]

People pick DE for ToG and because they don't need runes. DE being a popular choice doesn't mean it's a good one. There are some very good reasons why many warring kingdoms prefer regular Elves over Dark Elves.

---edit---
NM is an awesome spell but it's hard to cast. My own kingdom has used NM-chains in the past but it is very taxing on the players and hard to organize unless most of your players live in the same timezone. Most kingdoms capable of organizing NM-chains favor regular Elves because they're better. The DE players I've fought this age are mostly loners with poor activity which makes me associate DEs with Ghettos.

[Palem]

Stating delf mage can be disabled with massacres or aw for that matter is kinda moot don't you think ? Any other mage race is just as vulnerable to mass/aw as delf is. Elf has small advantage with CS but the fact most rogues are halfers makes one big dent in that spell.
Since this thread is about why are delfs good/popular choice when compared to other races I obviously ignored massacres and aw as it has nothing to do with race selection. Suggesting that rather generic approach which is perfectly viable against any race makes them in particular bad choice for a/m province is pointless.

Most rogues being halfers doesn't negate CS at all. It puts DE in an even worse position than Elf.

And yes, every race is susceptible to massacres, but with DE's it's an absolute killer. If you eliminate their maging threat, then the DE military is not at all powerful enough to compensate for that loss and they don't have time to repump their wizzies back. If you massacre an Elf, while you might have eliminated them as a serious maging threat, they've still got a lot of fire-power behind their military, so while you've spent time massacring their wizzards away, they were busy hitting and gaining more muscle behind the threat that you didn't address.

Your Orc comment I don't understand at all. Maybe you missed "with high cost spells" part of my statement ?

That's actually exactly what happened lol, and I would agree with that. However, spamming high-cost spells are often just as successful as spamming low-cost spells, so it doesn't speak much to the strength of the race.

[citadela01]

Halfers are immune to CS so elves only have advantage when facing gnome/delf rogues which I personally find much less dangerous than halfers with their crazy sabotage mods and bonus stealth. One could even go as far as to say that racial bonus vs racial penalty to sabotage ops further works to balance things out when it comes to aw resilience.

That put aside I fail to see why you value elves military so much over delfs. 10-15% land saved from towers is alone enough to compensate for the one point difference in elite values. And massacred elf will not continue to pump some strong military in war to further increases gap over delfs like you seem to imply, his already weak economy weakened by massacres can hope to pump out some offspecs in best case scenario. Delf in the same situation if his offensive spellcasting is disabled will at least ToG to get some extra gold, as weak as his income would be its at least something and he would definitely be able to train more than elf in the same situation.

I see delfs and elves as 2 VERY different races both well suited for their role. Elf is better suited to play light mage role and excels as suport caster for keeping up pf's, greeds and cleansing MV from kingdommates with occasional fb run when he has mana/runes to spare. Bad pick for mystic personality but works great as secondary caster with attacking oriented personality. WT+CS allows for lower tpa and focusing on easier to cast spells combined with racial bonus to wpa allows for even more pop to be diverted to military.

Delf is better suited to play heavy mage role and has great synergy with mystic personality. Incredible for maintaining MS carpet on enemy KD and much more difficult to stop from casting than elf/gnome. In organized kd's gives pretty nice option to organize NM runs which can be great weapon if kd is good enough to organize it and capitalize on it. Also with his ability to LL with all his mana has better chance to survive chains than other mage races.

For the record I play elf sage and fill the role I pointed out up there as apropriate for elf. If my job was to keep MS up on enemy kd I wouldn't even dream of picking elf. The sheer amount of towers needed for it gives me a headache. As a sage with 100%+ in channeling I run 10-15% towers and still I am rune always starved and every attacker in KD knows to come with runes if he needs mv casted on him.

[Palem]

Delf is better suited to play heavy mage role and has great synergy with mystic personality. Incredible for maintaining MS carpet on enemy KD and much more difficult to stop from casting than elf/gnome. In organized kd's gives pretty nice option to organize NM runs which can be great weapon if kd is good enough to organize it and capitalize on it. Also with his ability to LL with all his mana has better chance to survive chains than other mage races.

My point is that the elf's role is superior to this one, in that it's much better to have a surplus of elves as opposed to a surplus of DE's. I'm not saying that an Elf does a DE's job's better than a DE, but that an Elf is more important to a warring kd than a DE. Having 1 or 2 DE's is nice for a warring kd to blanket MS and such, but having too many is a hindrance to the kd, whereas having too many elves, while possibly annoying, does not put the kd at any type of immediate disadvantage. DE's are risky to put into your kd because they're clear-cut massacre targets.

Example: You have 5 DE's. Their role is typically to blanket MS. Yes, NM's are very nice, but they have to be organized waves or your NM's were pretty much wasted. No, I'm not including LL, because those extremely situational. On with the example, it takes 1 or 2 DE to get the other kd covered in MS. You now have 3 DE's with basically nothing to do because 3 DE's are not enough to do a good NM run with. If you add more DE's to get it so you can blanket the other kd with MS, then you're taking away from your kds offensive firepower to adapt a certain type of strategy and if you run into a kd that can neutralize that strategy, you're screwed.

Elves on the other hand don't really run into this problem. They typically have the job of FB'ing and Pitfalling. If 2 Elves get pitfalls on everyone, then the others can FB away and be just as effective with it as they would have been otherwise.

This all started with you saying that nothing could stop a DE from casting spells, and I just needed to interject for such a clearly incorrect statement.

[carter]

You guys are arguing in the fact that DE is a Mystic/ magic race. In fact for this age, they are not unless you picked Mystic or Sage for them.

DE has lost its +30% spell potency to Mystic this age and Dice has been nerfed, leaving only zero-rune casting and TOG a good asset for DE.

However, DE has + 15% to Sabotage gains this age. Along with invisibility spell that gives +10% to all thievery ops, DE is somewhat at +26.5% in Sabotage ops and at + 10% at intel ops. To further weakens the stand of Halfing, DE could make up for whatever it lacks in Thievery in Science.

Halfing is definitely stronger than DE in terms of military if you consider the spells of quickfeet and warspoils. However, DE has nightmare.

A DE Mystic would make a good T/M or a decent A/T/M. A DE Rouge would make a good A/T.

Since the nerf of Sage for this age, I wouldn't say it is a good fit for DE. Imo, Sage is a better fit for elf who has fountain of knowledge spell to go with it (if elf doesn't want the imba Mystic Pers fot his age).

In all, I would say that DE is not an easy or difficult race to play. It's a jack in all trades so depending on how you play it, you could make an area shines.

[Lestat]

DE shep is a dece combo. I can manage good NM and FB runs.

It could be worse:

The Province of You Cant Handle The Jandal (##:##)
[http://www.utopiatemple.com Angel v2.03 Alpha 2]

Server: World of Legends (Age 48)
Utopian Date: May 4th, YR7 (57% in the day)
RL Date: November 2nd, 2010 (21:34 GMT)

Ruler Name: The Humble Knight Lestat deLioncourt
Personality & Race: The Shepherd, Dark Elf
Land: 1,320 Acres
Money: 31,271gc (17,870gc daily income)
Food: 101,518 bushels
Runes: 0 runes
Population: 38,815 citizens (29.41 per Acre)
Peasants: 7,942 (85% Building Efficiency)
Trade Balance: -372,594gc (0% tax rate)

Military Eff. with Stance: 120.4% off. / 109.43% def.
Soldiers: 0 (66.3% estimated draft rate)
Night Rangers: 0
Druids: 10,284 (56,268 defense)
Drow: 12,452 (89,950 offense / 54,505 defense)
War-Horses: 2 (up to 2 additional offense)
Prisoners: 0

Total Modified Offense: 89,952 (68.15 per Acre)
Practical (75% elites): 67,465 (51.11 per Acre)
Total Modified Defense: 110,773 (83.92 per Acre)
Practical (25% elites): 69,895 (52.95 per Acre)

Thieves: 2,999 (2.27 per Acre / 100% Stealth)
Wizards: 5,138 (3.89 per Acre / 53% Mana)

[Lestat]

Very quick rebuild times too! Once the pezzies are high the economy is great and explore is cheap as chips.

[Blip]

i like DE for the NM support it provides but looking at the above which is a very good province has cemented that DE are not as good as some of the other races. Elf is clearly a better spell caster, and what only one race has worse elite values so DE do not make very good attackers.

[Lestat]

I almost went Elf/Tact but it always comes back to the no runes. I don't know what it is like now but back in the days when I played Elf alot it was difficult to have aenough runes. Until I remembered that I was locked in on Elf/tact.