A Guide to Better Elf -- It's not UP!

Contrary to what I thought literally a few hours ago, elf is a far more powerful class than many might think. It 3-shots any class in CTF, and its small but unique array of abilities--contrary to mage's small and unique set of abilities (lol h8 on mages)--makes for a great and balanced gameplay. That is, if it's played well. That's what I'm gonna (try to) teach you here.

A few minutes ago I decided to set out on a mission. I noticed today that I'm frequently typing /elf when I join a CTF match, and around the same time I decided I'd set out on this mission I became an elf main. This mission is to become a reputable elf, one that may or may not strike fear into the hearts of his opponents, but at the very least will force them not to expect an easy kill. I wish to share this mission with all you other elves, and here's how you can help me!

First off, I'll be frank: it's impossible to be a good elf if you're not a good shot with a (virtual) bow. For starters, I very highly recommend that you train as an archer first. Train and train and train until you believe you can 1-shot people fairly consistently; it takes 3 1-shots in a row for a rapid elf kill. I don't mean to intimidate you and expect you to be an OP archer before switching to elf, but it's rather necessary to be able to hit your target when you only have 10 arrows.

If you want a guide to playing archer, check out my how2archer thread in this Guide forum. Not to self-promote, but it's the only (full) archer guide in this Guide section.

If you just came back from reading how2archer (you don't have to read that before reading this), I'll tell you now that this shall be much neater than that guide. Here's how2elf.

The Pure Element

As I've said twice already, the Pure Element takes three shots to kill a person--that is, if they don't steak/heal pot/regen spell. This can be a more lethal weapon than you would've thought if used correctly and skillfully.

Here's one thing I concluded recently. Elf, like what I believe of many classes, has a primary skill to be learned in order to play the class well. Well, two primary skills, the first of which is being proficient with a bow (I know what you're thinking: "If that's not the key to elf, how the heck do you play it?!").

The second skill, though, is maintaining short-range accuracy. This proves extremely difficult when you're being pummeled by a person with a sword, but if you can master this, you will be able to take on heavies.

• Take your time. The 3-shot is only effective if you can get all three shots. A great way to ensure that is to not bowspam till you inevitably die (your death is only inevitable if you freak out and bowspam).
• Particle effects will kind of blind you a lot of the time. That is, if you play with your particles enabled (turning them down or off reduces lag). Whenever you hit someone with your Pure Element, you'll get some cool-looking fire all around you; in my opinion that's one of the most fun parts about playing elf. However if you deal many Pure Element hits in a rapid succession, if you don't move away from your previous flame effects, you'll get engulfed in the flames and it'll be hard to see. Emphasis on the first tip: take your time, don't shoot unless you have an accurate guess of where your target is (part of archer training).
• More on particle effects: As I said, one of the cool parts about elf is the particles and what they indicate. There's another indicator that your Pure Element creates, other than flames. When you're shooting a player, you may see a quick explosion of white particles when your arrow hits its target. This means that the player is low on health, and the next shot will be a killshot. Do your best not to miss that next shot--still take your time, but don't let your opponent steak before you get the shot off.

Also: Pure Element 3-shots dwarves too. Pretty nice, especially considering the range of elf.

The Earth Element

The Earth Element does far less damage than the Pure Element; never use it on a target who can be taken out via Pure Element. This element pretty much has three good uses.

1. Bringing down wallspamming soldiers. This function was originally meant to be the soldier counter, though its other functions are far more effective. It only works if you get a direct hit, which doesn't always happen. When it does, though, here's what you do: bowspam the crap out of that Earth Element (of course, with accurate shots), make sure that soldier does not get up again. There's no guarantee that you'll kill the soldier unless you manage to nail it with Pure Element a few times, but at least you've dealt plenty of damage for someone else to finish them off. For shooting climbing soldiers, see how2archer.
2. Slowing down flag carriers. When you get a direct hit with the Earth Element, a debilitating slowness effect is added to the victim, and then some dirt rises from the earth and crushes them. Not only do you damage the flag carrier, but you slow them down for about a second and allow your team to catch up at least a little bit. Dealing this in a rapid succession gets your team even closer to the recovery. Don't expect to recover the flag yourself; an elf recovery isn't as hopeless as an archer recovery, since archers take out carriers from a long range, but you lose a lot of ground to the carrier while you slow down to load your bow, while your teammates are constantly hurrying in for the recovery.
3. Being inaccurate. The crash of earthy dirt has a diameter of 3 blocks, while a regular arrow's hitbox has a diameter of, I don't know, an eighth of a block? Earth Element is much easier to hit people with than Pure Element. This is useful for three things: a. obviously being too lazy or panicked to accurately hit a strafing player, b. shooting into a crowd (say, a mob of people trying to recover a flag) where friendly players may get in the way of a Pure shot, and c. hitting invisible ninjas who have a far smaller chance of being killed by a regular arrow.

The Wind Element

This is a rather simple, yet very useful element. Left click your Wind bow to be forcefully puffed into the opposite direction of where you're looking (look straight, get puffed straight back; look straight and a little down, get puffed straight back and a little upward).

Actually shooting your Wind Element is good for a couple of things: knocking people off of the map if they're right on the edge, or trolling your friends. That's about it.

Of course, as you probably should have seen by now if you're a CTF player, elves can use their Wind Element to puff themselves up to hard-to-reach places. Although some people may find it just as annoying as soldier that an elf can evade a fight, never be afraid to do this yourself. You, unlike a soldier, have leather armor; if you're losing a fight, get outta there.

Lastly, one interesting thing to do with the wind element is fight archers and even other elves--any class that tries to kill you at a long range (mage is only arguable; like when you're playing most classes, you're likely to die). When you're dodging arrows, run around side to side in your arrow-dodging routine, but then you can occasionally puff a Wind Element and get blown back in the direction opposite from which you were running. Archers don't expect that.

The Water Element

Good for putting out fires. Go figure. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work with blocks that are on fire, but rather it only extinguishes players--which is actually more important in the presence of a pyro.

If you're on fire, here's three steps to be un-on-fire:

1. Switch to your Water Element bow.
2. Look down.
3. Lob an arrow at the ground. Lob the arrow; it doesn't have to be full-charged. In the time it takes you to fully charge your bow, the pyro already killed you, or you just lost too much damage to fire ticks.

The more you charge your Water Element, the bigger the extinguishing splash radius will be. You can extinguish nearby players with a big splash. For team support, you can extinguish a friendly player from as far as your arrow will shoot--for example, a flag carrier who's being attacked by a pyro or a mage who likes using Flame Spell.

Deflector Shield

I'll be straight with you: this rarely ever works against archers who have any sense in them. But it's useful nonetheless.

• Archer fights. I know I just said this isn't great against archers, but that's only if you use it offensively. It's much more of a defensive means when fighting your also-long-ranged opponent. When you get a shot off, quickly switch back to your sword and shift and sword-block, activating your shield. Don't sit there and wait, though; it'll run out of juice, then you'll get headshotted. Also, move around as frequently as you would in an archer vs archer fight, because blocking alone is not what will save you. If you ever see that, while you're loading your bow, the other archer is going to get a shot off, do not wait to fire your arrow. Switch to your sword and block, or chances are you're going to die.
• Elf ping-pong. These are fun. There's no concept that's different than archer fights, but there is one really fun thing to do, which will surprisingly often result in you getting a hit on your opponent. This goes both ways, but I'll just describe one way. When you shoot at an elf who's already blocking, switch back to your sword and also block. When your arrow deflects back at you, you can re-deflect the arrow back at your opponent. This goes back and forth very rapidly and it's very fun to watch. Then, either if your opponent un-blocks or runs out of deflector juice and doesn't get out of the way, you get a hit on them.
• Pyros. When you deflect an arrow, you also deflect what that arrow does. Like archers with headshot arrows, you can deflect a pyro's explosive arrow and set the pyro on fire. At least with my pyro experience against elves, I often don't expect the block, and I end up exploding myself and burning. In the pyro's brief shock, and in the time it takes for them to reload their bow, you may either deal some damage or get the heck out of there.
• Chemists. Although I've never actually tried it (yet), elf's deflector shield returns splash potions. Extremely effective against potspammers (finally something to counter those darn nubs, right?), and although you'll deal much more damage with a Pure Element shot, it can still be used in combat against a non-potspamming chemist.
• Mages. Elf deflects pretty much anything a mage throws at it. A lightning spell not thrown directly at the shield will still damage you, though. Fortunately, though, the most annoying spell--which is Damage--is deflected back at the mage, which is really cool.
• Engineers. This is in no way effective offensively against an engineer; the arrows just return straight to the turret, which does no damage to anything or anyone. But it's still a good defense for yourself when you come across a turret; better than being nailed by a bunch of arrows, anyway.

Elf Sword

Elves receive a wooden sword with Sharpness II enchantment. In short, Wood Sword < Elf Sword < Stone Sword. It's pretty much only effective against low-armored classes like ninja and assassin, maybe mage if you get really close and have zero time to load your bow for a high-damage shot. But it should be obvious enough that, with elf having four different bows, the class was meant to use arrows, not a sword.

And of course, as covered, you can shift and sword-block to create a deflector shield around you, which will deflect most incoming projectiles.

Leather Armor, Minus the Helmet

Your armor is slightly weaker than that of pyro's. You take damage very rapidly. Remember to steak often, and always use hand-to-hand combat only as needed. For example, when you've shot someone twice with your Pure Element and you don't think you can get a third hit. Also, when fighting a chemist, I find it very difficult just to get two shots off; one shot and sword PvP is an okay way to kill them; remember to stay close to that chemist, make sure you share healing pots while you continue to deal damage.

Final Tips and Mission Statement

Do not go into this expecting to maintain an above-1.0 kill-death ratio--it's perfectly achievable, but fairly difficult. Elf was meant for team support and self-defense, with a secondary ability to kill random players; its secondary function is arguably flag capping. Whenever you type /elf, remember where your place is in the intricate web of CTF balance (or unbalance, depending on how you look at it).

Have fun, but just as importantly, make an impact. My dream is for elves to be a feared class in CTF, with a similar lethality to ninja or soldier; not overpowered, but right in the middle of the mix; balanced.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to become the greatest elf you can be, and make the class something any player will think twice about before killing.

Again, have fun. c:

 

I swear I put that somewhere... I'll read over again and see whether I actually did, and in any case I'll make it more clear.

 

I know damage is not reflected, however you must be right about the lightning. It's just that when a mage doesn't make a direct hit, the lightning still damages you. It's mainly a matter of luck whether the shield is effective against lightning, unless the mage is skilled and intentionally shoots right beside the shield.

 

how2killAnything: ^ (maybe besides ninja with heavy or dwarf)

Yeah so only later did I realize all that works. Idk if it was broken at the time, or if my/the mage's ping was bad in the few times I found that it didn't work (my ping is usually 97, pretty good). It also seems that only my headshot deflection is broken, that much I can really confirm. Anyway, I'm gonna smooth out some rough edges on this guide.

 

Sure it can. I do that in elf fights all the time! (Unless that's just an elf bug.)

I like your tips. Never occurred to me that you could do that with archers; I'm so trying that xD