Personally, I disagree. Yes, they’re an elite group of Draenei infused with light, but I don’t think they’re representative of the Draenei elite as a whole. Who are the Draenei elite? Velen, Ishanah, Yrel, and the Exarchs. LF Draenei are nothing more than a customization option for those that want to role play as a holy-looking character. They’re irrelevant to Draenei society and culture as a whole, merely being a group of seasoned holy-infused warriors.
Which is what the Tauren have been since the start of WoW and the establishment of Thunderbluff, so nothing new or unique.
The theme of transhumanism has been explored by many races already, albeit by magical means as opposed to mechanical. Orc’s fel taint, the curse of undeath, Worgan curse, curse of flesh, LF Draenei, Void Elves, etc. I view it as a slightly different take on an already tired concept in WoW. No hate on anyone that like mechagnomes, but the idea is less novel than you think.
My problem with this is that most races were either effectively isolationists or from another planet prior to the launch of WoW. That was the selling point of vanilla WoW; for the first time, a playable character gets to go explore the huge new world. With the exception of Night Elves and humans on the Eastern Kingdoms, most races lived their whole lives in one set region, oblivious to the state of the rest of the world. Nightborne are really only a few years behind everyone else. Sure, it’s the couple of years where all of WoW’s plot happens, but it’s not that extraordinary.
That’s an oddly specific “niche”. I would argue that’s just what they are, not that they’re filling some new idea or trope. We had some bulky races already- they were just short or furry.
That’s a reasonable opinion to have, and I understand why you personally want it to work this way. However, that is your opinion, and I don’t feel like it has been a major reason for adding the races that Blizzard has added lately. I think the “cool” factor and ease of creation have been the primary reasons for all the allied races’ existence.
This is where I disagree again, for several reasons. Firstly, lumping all elves together just because they have “elf” in the name is disingenuous. Night elves and Blood Elves are far more different than humans and dwarves are. All elves are trolls, yet we didn’t have anyone crying about “too many trolls” when they added the Zandalari, despite having 3 other troll groups in the game at that point.
Secondly, as I stated before, High Elves would fill new and unique niches.
I know I’ve already typed a LOT, and this is going to be a bit abstract, but bear with me.
The story and dynamic of elves is like a painting. Each group is like a fresh tube of paint.
You can paint a picture with just one color. Two is more interesting. Three is better yet.
We’re at the point where we have black, white, red, and blue. You CAN paint a really beautiful and moody painting with these colors. They mix and blend wonderfully, creating all manners of mood and emotion. Many people say this is enough, and we don’t need more colors, because we’re already oversaturated. We can blend from one end of the visible light spectrum (red) to nearly the other end (blue), AND we can blend the two for countless combinations of purples between the two. What more could you ask for? It’s one end to the other, and everything in between, plus the lights, darks, and grays that could alter them them further.
Yet many of us really want yellow. “We don’t need ANOTHER color! We need to focus on texture and brush size instead!”, the forums argue. Yellow by itself might not seem like that big of a deal, but by adding it, we gain so much more by the mixing and contrasting of the color. There’s infinite possibilities to be had merely from the addition of a tube of yellow paint. Orange, green, cyan, brown, beige, sage, peach, coral, olive, etc. cannot exist without yellow.
In essence, this is a lot like what you are arguing when you say you think every race needs to fill a unique niche; you think things should only be added if they are a new color. Yet, you go on to say that High Elves are not unique, and that their implementation won’t add anything new- whether in its pure form or mixed with others.
As High Elves are already in the game and interacting with other elves, you should be able to see some of the color they add. For some reason, there is a lot of resistance to adding High Elves. Some people are deliberately ignorant to the situation, due to malicious intent, while others seem to be colorblind.
Of course its also valid for you to simply not like yellow (along with the other colors it brings with it), but if this is the case, you should at least understand why others so desperately want it. It brings SO MUCH along with it- more than most people are aware of.