Night Elves

Medieval Drive-by

The new Night Elf race shouldn't be confused with the Drow from AD&D, or Dark Elves from Warhammer, or standard fantasy Wood Elves. Blizzard is drawing from all kinds of different Elf lore to create the Night Elves of WarCraft III. First and foremost, Pardo emphasized that the Night Elves are a "hit and run" type of race. Nearly all their units are fast and feature ranged attacks. They have few melee attackers, and will not stand up in a toe-to-toe brawl with, say, an Orc army. Pardo stressed that Night Elf players will need to focus on sound tactics and spell casting to maximize the race's strengths.

A Night Elf army

The Night Elves' roles are split pretty evenly along gender lines. The females in the race are generally the warriors, while the males are more druidic in nature, and make up the spell casters of the race. Just about all the female Night Elves have "shadow meld" as a natural ability - meaning that they will cloak themselves during nighttime, while they are stationary. Pardo quickly ran through a number of the Night Elf units with us.

Sentinel

The Sentinel is one of the Night Elves' elite warriors. She can shadow meld like the other warriors, has a ranged attack, and has an owl companion that you can use to scout the surrounding terrain. According to Pardo, the owl will likely work in a similar way that the Eye of Kilrogg worked for Ogre-Mages in WarCraft II - a controllable entity that you can fly about the land for a set period of time.

More Night Elf action with Undead Frost Wyrms and an Orc joining the party

Assassin

The Assassin is another one of the Night Elves' female units, schooled in the more treacherous arts of combat. One of her abilities is a poison dart attack that will slowly sap the life of a targeted creature until it dies or gets cured - very similar to Irradiate and Plague from Starcraft.

Correction - 11:00AM 04/05: Rob Pardo wrote in with this clarification about the Assassin - "Assasin - She doesn't have a blow dart attack. She will use throwing stars in battle and will have a role similar to the Dark Templar in StarCraft."

Druid of the Claw and Druid of the Talon

These two male Night Elves have the ability to change shape. The Druid of the Claw can turn into a bear with a vicious melee attack - one of the few melee attackers for the Night Elves. Pardo mentioned that it should be common to see Druid-Bears leading the charge into battle while the other units bring up the rear, supporting with their spells and ranged attacks. The Druid of the Talon can shape shift into a Raven, allowing it to fly around and scout the map, while regenerating hit points.