It's very, very good.

They get the ENTIRE racial damage lines of both Valenar and Aerenal Elves together.

So: Long Swords, Rapiers, Scimitars, Short Bows, Long Bows, and +2 for Falchions. Amazing.

Most of the Racial Tree is similar, but there are some nice perks in there. Wild Step, Forest Origins and Forest's Versatility. See the link.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Wood_Elf

They use the Aasimar body paper dolls and animations.

They have some awesome new hair styles (40 or so for the females). White is not an option for hair colour, as a point of interest.

And they have entirely new faces, which are everything the Half-Elf race should have been.

Pretty pleased with this overall, although I wish they'd have saved this for a Helf revamp and kept the Wood Elves for an Iconic Race or something.

noamineo wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 3:01pm:

Yeah, it was clearly designed with Ranger as the focus.

That said, because of the stat spread with no CON penalty, and the ability to take STR or DEX in the racial tree, it opens up all the options for OTHER classes that f2p Elf was sub par for...

So: Barb, Druid, Fighter, or even Pally.

Other interesting options would be Monk, or various Cleric/FvS builds, and Sorc, because all the Arcanum feats, Arcane Alacrity and Enchantment focus are still in place.

Basically, they sold us "Optimized Elf".

And frankly, I'm not sure it isn't better than Half-Orc, considering that Horc is also p2p and isn't as well balanced (overall Horc is a net -2 stat points. Wood Elf is net 0 with very similar benefits since Wood Elf includes Scimitars and Falchions).

I'm OK with all of that (well, maybe not the Horc gimpage, but whatever). I did all my learning on the f2p races, and it's fine if new(er) players do too. Once they know what they're after, then they can start buying the optimized p2p options.

Or just skip the grind and just go straight to Aasimar and Dragonborn

noamineo wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 3:24pm:

Falchion or GTFO. 

DDO favours Melee weapons in a Crit Threat > Crit Multiplier > Base Damage order of operations.

It's why SoS is still the preferred THF weapon after all this time (and eSoS for those lucky enough to have one is still one of the top contenders for DPS even in Epic content).

So a damage buff to a Falchion with it's 18-20 Crit Threat is a big deal. Same with Scimitars and Rapiers.

But really, they gave me a physically attractive race for my preferred class, more Mabar cosmetics, and cloaks to boot (some of which are super cool looking), so I'm calling u40 a win. Even if nothing else was included in this update.

And +1 Art Team Rep all around (and for that Silver Dragon model in the raid too).

I think it's neat how we get another race without having an additional +3 racial past lives to grind out.

Maybe I'll check it out someday, but for now I'm still on the "human master race" train... extra feat is so damn useful

Metal-Beast wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 3:36pm:

Yes. That's why I'm considering a Wood Elf Frenzied Berserker (or maybe Ravager) of some sort. Will use Tail of the Scorpion obviously.

noamineo wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 5:59pm:


It might take a few runs but definitely not ESOS-like. It's not a raid item.

“Faith of the Forest” could make a Wood Elf Favored Soul an interesting option as well.

QuantumFX wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 6:46pm:


You'd still have to multiclass too much. There's just not enough oomph in warsoul to make up for the suck, even with a falchion.

Does anyone know if Wild Step triggers Prowess? Seems like it would be useful for non-LD characters. LD characters would have to pick between 100% boost uptime with 50% prowess uptime and 66% boost uptime with 66% prowess uptime.

Does anyone have confirmation on whether or not Faith of the Forest allows you to use The Blood is the Life or Aureon's Instruction with the different weapons equipped?

Edit: It doesn't work with either of these. Works for Onatar's Forge since it doesn't require a weapon.

Edrein wrote on Oct 9^th, 2018 at 3:20pm:

Who said they get Proficiency?

I see a multi-selector for them to count as Deity Favored Weapons but I don't see any enhancement in their tree that grants Falchion "Proficiency."

There's also a racial enhancement in that tree that grants DEX to damage for Longswords, Rapiers, Scimitars, Shortbows, Longbows, and Falchions but no DEX To Hit which is problematic for a Falchion user because I am unaware of anything else that would be equivalent to Weapon Finesse but for Falchions.

Edrein wrote on Oct 6^th, 2018 at 7:49am:

All valid arguments. The opinions above were "First impression, top of my head" observations when I posted them. I completely forgot about Rage-casting bears. 

Dragonborn and Aasimar have the advantage of being +2 net build points, so that IMHO, gives them an advantage. I personally think Aasimar is dull AF, but lots of people love them so whatever. Easy access to Racial Hamp is also a bonus.

Horc has the advantage of being completely weapon agnostic, which welf does not. That being said, I am one of those people who prefers more build points to focused stat allocation so YMMV.

I'm also a huge fan of my gimpy flavour builds, so I'll leave it up to the build maetros to duke it out over how to get 1 more MP/RP/USP/DC than the next guy in another thread.

Edrein wrote on Oct 9^th, 2018 at 4:17pm:


All "regular" elves get proficiency with Rapiers, Longswords, and Bows (long and Short).

Drow get Rapier, Shortsword, and Shurikens.

No Elves get proficiency with Scimitars or Falchions, unless their class specifically grants those proficiencies.

So yeah, a Falchion swinging FvS is kind of a No-Go, but Scimitars, Rapiers and Longswords are possible (although I doubt anyone is using a Longsword, ever).

I can't imagine why anyone would roll a Warsoul, TBH, and I'm a melee enthusiast. Cleric with War Domain might work, if you were so inclined. Druid makes some sense (it was clearly in mind when they designed the racial tree) because it gets scimitar class proficiency.

But generally, when I'm talking about any spellcasting class (except Druid) I am speaking to it as a caster. In my experience, no spell casting class fares better as a melee build than they do as a pure caster build (Druid excepted, even then it's debatable) so weapon proficiency is kind of moot.

Again, other people better at min-max'ing will need to fight out the details over in the Builds forum for any kind of consensus on "best use of Welf trees". 

Edited:

i made 2 and noticed they dont racially have scimmmy
proficiency. but my one a druid- so thats cool but-
makin whole tree limb based on scims seems they shud
indeed have it racially... just my 2cp -
sry if i missed something earlier-