no actually, thats not what i mean. i know the line is very thin between the concepts but follow along for a moment -
blood elves are high elves. for 13 years or so, they were missing signature helf eye colors and runic tats. and for even longer than that, they’ve been missing farstrider tats. and though they currently still dont have tats or runics, they have everything else.
velfs are high elves, and like belfs, they were missing signature helf eye colors, tats and runics, and also missing helf skin colors, helf hairstyles and helf haircolors. some of the velfs were literally former alliance helfs and currently new helfs are joining, for whatever reason. so we have a nice pool of helfs but look quite a bit less like helfs than belfs. this is to retain visual uniqueness. this is where the helf mode idea comes in:
give belfs a helf mode too, where they can access a different set of hairstyles/haircolors/beards/tats than the rest of their belf kin. make the hairstyles unique to their faction and add lots of braids so its like a signature that this is a belf helf, not just a belf. more farstrider-ish. like this guy but with helf eyecolors and braids https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7e/c9/27/7ec927369ba6e7c53cf434cbc042d29d--blood-elf-male-druid-elf.jpg
do this also for velfs but with different hairstyles/beards/tats/runics
Blue wasn’t really a signature helf eye colour, so much as a lazy shorthand to show that NPCs weren’t belves.
Runic tattoos are actually more signature belf.
It doesn’t need to be a separate mode. There’s nothing wrong with a belf belf using braids. It would fit perfectly with the Farstrider theme that Blizzard continues to painfully ignore.
Even the blue eyes. There are blue eyed belves already, such as Lanesh the Steelweaver. Nothing beyond headcanon needs to represent helves for belves, as helves wouldn’t bring anything that belves couldn’t have on their own.
shhh, i’m trying to generate interest in belfs that look like old school helfs or how we theorize they might have looked, and return the druid class to them. i say return, though there’s scant evidence they ever were, there’s certainly enough to make them botanist druids initially, then they prove themselves to the druid council and get accepted into druidry proper.
velfs would have runic tats too just by virtue of some of them being enlisted from the belf population. in the darker velf skincolors, those runics could glow. now that would look cool.
i promised 2 things: to protest for belf dark rangers and belf druids. just keeping my promises.
Given the current lore, I don’t think any Druids made the boat trip over and became Thalassians. Druids would be a new innovation for them, based on botanists.
I’m on board with this… and so is Linxy
If the idea is to make them different, I’d say to go Void themed tattoos for velves.
it wouldnt be new per sey since kael’thas’ clan had botanists in the botanica. could have different racial, like + to herbalism and then maybe a new profession like tinkering where you merge herbalism and tech
I 100% agree with this, I’m so tired of seeing the whole, but only helfs can have braids. If you want to have braids in your hair then you’re a half, If you have blue eyes you’re a helf. No I’m not a helf, I’m a belf with blue eyes and braids.
Also dark Ranger customizations for Blood Elves, and Farstrider, and Runic tattoos for Belfs, and Velfs.
why are you sick of it - it’s a way to make another theme. like velfs have 2 potential themes, velfs and velf helfs. belfs are not claiming their helf theme cause they consider its just something they already had. but really helf visuals were mostly lost when belfs went to outlands, following the scourge invasion. blue and potentially purple eyes, runic and farstrider tats, are part of the helf theme. are you just afraid if you do that, they wont give you dark rangers?
Because braided hair isn’t something that solely belongs to High Elves. Blood Elves have just as much right to them, and should not have to call themselves High Elves to get them.
well here’s the thing - we need a reason to 1) get more hairstyles for belfs and velfs and 2) get classes belfs and velfs want but dont have; for example, belfs want druids, velfs want paladins.
since belfs dont have druids, it could be finessed that before the scourge invasion, many helfs were practicing a rudimentary form of druidism as evidenced by their use of rune stones and thas’alah - the mother tree of quel’thalas, then those who survived became botanists, and then those botanists were killed because they followed kael’thas, and kael’thas messed up by following kil’jaeden instead of illidan. he gambled and chose the wrong horse and his people suffered because they were loyal to him.
anyway, as a result, helf druid variants vanished from belf society. this could be a way to make an across the board deal. belfs in helf mode, can be botanist druids and velfs in helf mode, can be paladins. and both sides get new hairstyles/beard styles, etc.
They can just have more hairstyles. There doesn’t need to be a justification for it.
This is a retcon though. Instead, we could just make new lore where for example some Blood Elves decide “this would be useful” (that’s where Void Elves came from after all, so looking for new sources of power is something they still do), or even have them learn it from their Tauren allies.
well i was trying to determine what would make the devs resistant to adding druids to belfs, and all i could think of is because belfs are already highly populated. giving them a new class when they have more classes than other races is not likely without some compromises, so i thought, well, a possible compromise is you can only select it if you also select a certain set of appearances. that will lower the amount of people willing to roll a belf helf druid. same for velf helf paladins. if your fav appearance is a blueberry velf, you cant be a paladin. etc
