Dark-Elves
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The Elves of WAR: Witch Elf levels 6-10
We gave you the first five levels of the Witch Elf and hey, that was pretty awesome. However, now we've got the next five levels and they're totally cooler than the last five. We swear! It's within these levels that you'll get your first morale ability for the Witch Elf class, which adds another layer to the combat. Up until this point, combat in Warhammer Online feels somewhat typical, aside from the Blood Lust (BL) mechanic for the Witch Elf. So once you've earned this Rank 1 morale ability, you'll find yourself experiencing a more complete and varied combat system.
The Elves of WAR: Dark Elf Chapter I Public Quest, Spires of Narthain
The first Public Quest (PQ) we came across while playing our Dark Elves was a very cool experience, especially considering that this is only the first of many PQs. We suppose it's in Mythic's best interest to -- pardon the term -- wow players early and often and the Spires of Narthain PQ does exactly that. Around level four or five, you'll be headed to the area your map has conveniently indicated for you to complete some quests. Suddenly, an objective indicator will show up in the upper-right portion of your screen. What's this? Well, you've arrived at the Spires of Narthain, the last bastion of High Elf defense in this area. Get ready for some action.
The Elves of WAR: Level 1-5 quests for High Elves
Massively's exclusive coverage of the Elves of WAR continues with a look at the first five levels in the Warhammer Online for High Elves. Whether you roll an Archmage, Shadow Warrior, Swordmaster or White Lion, your High Elf will follow the same quest line, unless you fly to one of the other racial starting areas. Either way, prepare to have it out with Dark Elves from the get go.Upon creating your High Elf you start the game in the outpost of Moonrise on the Blighted Isle. You'll have some basic abilities/spells already slotted in your hotbar. There is only one quest giver in the outpost, Silvshara Greywind. She gives a kill quest for six Dark Sprites in the forest, then five Dark Elf Infiltrators.After completing the kill quests, your High Elf will be level two and be able to train in a new spell/ability by talking to the NPC with the bullseye over their head. If you don't have enough cash, you can kill a few more Dark Elves in the forest for coin and loot you can sell to the vendor.Your next quest sends you to the quest hub in Calumel to the southeast. On the way there, you'll find an Elf who will give you the quest to shoot Harpies with the Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower next to him. This uses none of your spells/abilities, but puts you in shooter mode where you take control of the launcher and aim the crosshairs at the Harpies. This is just training for RvR use of harpoons and other siege equipment later in the game. But don't pass this up as it's easy exp and he will send you on to the same place you were heading anyway.
The Elves of WAR: Meet the Sorceress
Do dark magical forces beckon you? It could be that the Dark Elf Sorceress -- Sorcerer for males -- is just the class for you in Warhammer Online, so long as you don't mind being an Elf. The Sorceress is -- for all intents and purposes -- your typical mage-type class. Don't take that statement at face value, though. There is a nice twist to the class that helps keep things interesting while you nuke the snot out of everything in sight. The difference between, say, a Sorceress and an Archmage is the disdain for any adherence to the balancing act with magical energies. Where a High Elf crafts her magic with a careful touch, a Sorceress steals as much as she can and flings all of it at her enemies at once. This doesn't come without a risk, of course.
The Elves of WAR: Meet the Disciple of Khaine
The Bloody Handed god has priests like any of the other gods in Warhammer Online, only his priests come with a twist. They are known as Disciples of Khaine and they relish dealing death to their enemies like the rest of their brothers and sisters. These dark, devoted believers of Khaine deal death a bit differently, though. They take their enemies' strength and give it to their allies in order to bolster the battle towards Dark Elven favor. Typically you'll see a Disciple of Khaine carrying disturbingly-shaped ritual blades, which are the implements used to suck the Soul Essence from their foes. Although, they're also able to carry a chalice in their off-hand as well.For players looking to go toe-to-toe with their enemies while keeping their allies fighting the good fight, this class is a very nice fit. Unlike your typical mace-swinging healer of old, this is a class that wouldn't think twice about running someone through with their twisted blade.
The Elves of WAR: Meet the Witch Elf
We know some of you probably aren't looking to have quests and their delectably gooey centers spoiled for you, so with that in mind we've got something else for you to sink your teeth into. While there may only be three Dark Elf classes for now, they're at least compelling classes for anyone looking to be a dark, brooding badass. For this post, we're going to focus on the Witch Elf and her nasty array of sharp, stabby, poisonous and just all-around deadly attacks. Each ability is listed in the order you acquire it as you level up and train. Also, keep in mind that the damage listed is only the initial ability and its leveled-up version.
The Elves of WAR: "The Joys of War"
We've seen the first quest for the Dark Elves in Warhammer Online, and it wasn't quite what we were expecting. You could definitely say we were happily surprised. So to be honest, we didn't expect the second quest to be so much cooler than the first. After turning in Blood Feud, you find yourself tasked with a much more vicious quest called, "The Joys of War" This time you're ordered to operate a massive siege weapon, which will rid the beach of pesky High Elf warriors. It's really their own fault for getting in your armies' way of conquering The Blighted Isle.The High Elves aren't expecting this terrible attack, because they're an honorable race of snooty know-it-all types. Why would anyone do such a dishonorable thing? Well, to win the war, obviously. It was so much fun watching those tippy-toeing High Elves prance up the beach while we nailed them (literally, in a sense) in the face for 30,000 damage with high-grade Reaper Bolt Thrower spikes. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our other exclusive Elves of War features and all of our previous Warhammer Online features. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
The Elves of WAR: Your very first Dark Elf quest
So what's the very first thing you do when you log into Warhammer Online as a Dark Elf? You accept the quest "Blood Feud" and get right to the High Elf killing, of course. Surrounded by the towering ebony ships known as Black Arks, the very first thing you see is a Dark Elf man. He has light purple skin, is wrapped in red robes and metal bracing and his name is Gorthan Rakar. He has a job for you:"Thousands of years have pased since our treacherous kin, the so-called High Elves, betrayed us by choosing the follow the pretender king, and used their vile magics to sunder our lands. So long have we waited for our revenge, and today, with the strength of the Black Ark behind us, we will have it!"After reading these words, you turn around and see before you a wide breadth of beach covered in NPC Corsairs fighting Sea Guards. It is up to you to aid in the slaughter for if not you, who else? Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
The Daily Grind: Would you rather play High Elves or Dark Elves?
So we've given you some hot-off-the-pre-NDA lift information on both the Dark Elves and High Elves. Now we pose to you a "Would you rather" situation: Dark Elves or High Elves? We're aware that Elves tend to be a love-hate relationship with most of us. So even if you would much rather run around as an awesome Greenskin or an Order race, we simply must know which of two evils would you pick and why?We can certainly understand if you'd want to play as the sinister, wicked and all-around clinically insane Dark Elves. Though there are likely plenty of people who enjoy running around in bright nansy-pansy High Elf robes with giant, golden swords, too. Our strategy is to pretend they're not most certainly surrounding us at every moment. If we succumbed to the truth of it, the world we've built up around ourselves may just crush us into tiny, gooey blogger giblets.
The Digital Continuum: Dark Elf days in WAR
So we've gotten official approval to speak our minds early and often about the Dark Elf (High Elves too, but bollocks to Order, I say!) experience in tier one and two as much as we like. That led me to decide that it would be fun to give you my personal take on them. Especially considering that in the not-so-distant past I made my worries about Warhammer Online very well known. As worrisome as Mythic's decision to remove four cities and four -- but in reality, two -- classes made me before, I'm happy to say that overall my experience with the early Dark Elf starting zone has been a positive one.From the moment you enter Warhammer Online as a level one Dark Elf surrounded by Black Arks and clanging metal, you'll be made to feel like an evil and menacing figure. This is done in various ways and I'm glad to say that it's never undone. One way Mythic invests you into your character is the first quest you ever receive and it's going to put a smile on a lot of your faces, unless you're an Order player. If you're an Order or player, you'll probably want to run into my sword for Malekith's sake. Trust me, it's really all for the best.
First Impressions: SAGA
SAGA (not to be confused with Saga, who gave us the immortal "On the Loose") is an MMORTS -- massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game. While there are few enough of these on the market -- making its very existence worthy of approbation -- we thought it would be worth taking a closer look, to offer up an opinion of our first couple of hours into gameplay. Thus, this First Impressions post.Remember: this is not a guide, nor was this in any way influenced by the development studio. This is an entirely subjective look at SAGA, from an average gamer's point of view. And now, on with the show! Game. Thing. Whatever. Onward!%Gallery-28014%
The Digital Continuum: Diet WAR
Diet Warhammer Online: same great taste, less content. Is it bad that the recently re-branded Mythic Entertainment just cut out a large portion of our Warhammer Online pie and put it in the deep freeze? Well it's certainly not good when a developer cuts content they've been talking about publicly for so long, especially when launch is only three or four months away. I've already written about why this MMO ode to classic tabletop trappings shouldn't be shoved onto shelves half-baked and I still feel like I'd rather see a delay than see so much content cut. While there have been plenty of delays already, that doesn't mean more would have been intolerable. I'm going to try and take an honest look at what the removal of four capital cities and four classes means for Warhammer Online. I will admit that when the news first hit, a vile and seemingly ancient sort of anger began to boil up inside my lungs. It was the onset of some form of draconian rage at the removal of so much content that I'd been personally invested in as a future player. I never really got into Chaos and planned on playing Dark Elves, but now a large part of that content is gone. At first I felt anger and confusion towards Mythic. It wasn't until after that initial knee-jerk anger passed that I was able to give some real thought to their choice and was able to consider the varied consequences.
Warhammer Online's realm imbalance fears
When Warhammer Online releases later this year do you think there will be a skewed realm population? The GREENSkin blog seems to think so, but history would disagree with them. Whenever a game has been faction-based the "evil" races tend to be popular during the beta period. This fear of imbalance was a issue in Dark Age of Camelot and in World of Warcraft. During both of those instances beta testers expressed worry that the more evil of the realms would be entirely overpopulated post launch. However, the exact opposite happened to the complete befuddlement of beta testers everywhere.
From Tabletop to Desktop: WAR's Destruction careers
With the announcement of the White Lion as the final career in Warhammer Online, we finally have a good idea of what the class dynamics will be in the long-anticipated MMO from Mythic. Obviously, the specifics of each aren't set in stone, as some classes don't even have their masteries announced yet, but one finally gets the sense that it's all starting to come together. With this is mind, we've put together an overview of the game's classes, including a comparison to their tabletop equivalents, to give you a better idea of what you've got to look forward to with the upcoming open beta. In the first part of this feature, we take a look at the careers on the side of Destruction.And if you like what you what you see here, make sure to check out our on-going Massively goes to WAR features! From Tabletop to Desktop: WAR's Destruction careers >>>>>%Gallery-24169%
Exclusive screenshots of Vanguard's new racial mounts
From Sony Online Entertainment this morning, we have a pair of exclusive images for you. Above is pictured a Dark Elf, astride the brand new racial mount coming to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes in Game Update 5. The newest chunk of content for the game will be arriving on the test server very soon, and these racial mounts are one of the content drop's big selling points. Each race is going to have its own mount, which will be earned through faction questing for the race's capital city. This Dark Elf, for example, would have earned her spider by questing for Hathor Zhi. The best part is that this earned faction (another new system coming in Update 5) can be achieved by anyone! So even if you don't like your race's faction mount, you can go earn yourself another one. We're told to warn you in advance: earning faction with one city may earn you the ire of others. If you plan to travel extensively, you may want to be wary of becoming overly honored with any one racial city. These mounts are first earned at level 30, but we're assured there will be level 50 mounts available for questing adventurers as well. For a peek at another of these mighty beasts, click on through to our Update 5 gallery to get a good look at the Half-Elven mount: the Dragon Turtle, earnable from the city of Tanvu.Full details on the mounts, the new faction system, and much more will be appearing on the Vanguard Players site very soon. Stay tuned!%Gallery-20844%
WAR beta update, dark elf-style
In the latest news from the Warhammer Herald, the Mythic crew updates those unlucky souls still wandering on the outskirts of the Warhammer Online beta on the progress that's been made in live testing over the last several months. The most recent beta push has focused on the down and dirty combat between the High Elves of Ulthuan and their dastardly neighbors to the north, the Dark Elves. The update picks up the perspective of the Dark Elves, and includes some small chunks of lore, specifics on the various Chapters that underwent testing, and some beta journals from those lucky SOBs who got a beta invite.For my part, I think they've really done a good job of capturing the spirit of the Dark Elves. Whatever your feelings are about witches, worshiping the gods of Chaos, or scantly clad ladies, the overriding drive that unites all Dark Elves is an undying hatred for those haughty, do-nothing fairy-boys, the High Elves. There's just something endearing to me about a race of people whose primary motivation is spite. Only in the Warhammer universe could they pull something like that off.The update also says that the next phase of testing will focus on Empire and Chaos. Let's hope that once that's done, they'll finally move into guild beta.
WAR's Saphery zone is full of tall magical things
The racial pairing we still have the least information for has been the High and Dark Elves, but that is starting to change. Enter the Saphery zone -- a third tier zone for High Elves -- that is chocked full of magical energies and ancient High Elf beauty. This makes it a target for Dark Elves who want to twist and malign those energies, the Greenskins so they can smash all the pretty stuff and the Chaos so they can, well, bring chaos to everything in sight we suppose. There's actually quite a bit (actually, more like tons) of background lore in the zone overview of Saphery. We've noticed for some time now that a lot of structure designs in Warhammer Online are very, very tall. However it looks like High Elf architecture trumps all other height-imbued buildings, but that makes sense since High Elves are all about being tall and uppity. Oh, we're digging the blue-leafed trees as well.
WAR class info: High Elf Shadow Warrior
There's always a draw to the Elven races in MMOs, especially when they've got some seriously wicked personality. So when we saw this article we had to jump in head first and absorb all the information from within its gooey bowels. It's a long read, but we've got the skinny for your Warhammer Online needs -- including lore and class information. Be warned though, we may ramble on a bit about Shadow Warriors and how cool they're starting to sound.
WAR boss prologue: Lorkoth and Scornlash
Those looking to read some interesting lore concerning a PQ boss that Order players will face in the Dark Elf lands look no further. Well, we're sure that there aren't many of you who have been specifically looking to read something like that, but maybe you just haven't realized you want to. In fact, if you look around the Warhammer Online website you'll find quite a few little pockets of knowledge that you might have never realized you wanted to know.
November Warhammer newsletter features Mounts!
The November edition of the Warhammer Online newsletter has been mailed out to all the eager WAAUGH fans out there, and it's a doozy. Building on the most recent Beta Updates, the dev team lets loose with a huge pile of goodies. Highlights include: Mounts! Aside from the handsome porcine steed above (a Greenskin favorite), they have images up for an Ale-powered Dwarven carriage, felsteeds for Chaos riders, and beautiful beasts for the Elves and Empire. A lengthy screed on the mysterious Tome of Knowledge. Their article runs down what you're like to see in the book, and what kinds of tales it will record for your own character. A Paul Barnett special presentation on the Dark Elf Sorceress ... and Sorcerer! Yes, boy and girl evil mages. As Paul puts it, "They're both emo, and they both live forever!" A first look at work on a new Warhammer cinematic trailer (you know, since you're probably tired of the first one). An in-depth look at the High Elf Archmage class. An overview of the Shadowlands zone, an elven area. A look at another Public Quest! My favorite idea from the game, as of yet. They run down the IronClad confrontation with King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk. One of the always-enjoyable animated game design presentations, this one detailing major changes to the Careers and RvR systems. The video of the month walks us deep into the Inevitable City, the capital of the followers of Chaos. A bunch of other delights, like Paul's Video Diaries, a Grab Bag update, and another Beta Journal Entry. There's a ton more stuff exclusive to the Newsletter. This is my not-so-subtle way of saying you really should be signed up to get it. Go check it out!
