Graceful and deadly elves, blessed with the gift of long centuries of life and an alliance with some of the oldest inhabitants of the world of Odra, the children of the evergreen forests of Krong. Too noble to seem dangerous, elves are capable of punishing anyone who underestimates their power.
Elves can be considered one of the most difficult factions to master. As they say: “Easy to learn, hard to master”. The whole point is that elves are characterized by the weakest survivability of all the formations, but they compensate for it with high damage and incredible mobility. But the main difficulty lies not in realizing the advantage of elves before they lose health, but in activating their passive effects.
Every unit in the Forest Alliance has a passive feature called “Children of Krong”. It gives the units of the formation 10% to all defense parameters if they stand on a sector with the Forest Cover effect. These sectors do not slow them down, which is not the case for all other formations. This effect is due to the special mechanics of the faction, which we will talk about later. But we already note that elves are more dependent on synergies between units of their faction.
Elven mages differ from all others in their stable and effective area damage. Their aoe damage can also be used as battlefield control, as area damage is periodic, over several rounds. If you use Poison Cloud on an enemy's power spot or hold sector, you're almost guaranteed to chase them away or deal a lot of damage. With mages of the second rank the situation is more interesting. You can either use an Archon with enhanced poison damage and the ability to aoe downgrade enemy armor, or you can choose to use an Oracle Summoner, who can summon nature elementals and create vegetation, which is the most important passive of the Forest Alliance.
Forest Union healers have two healing options: normal and enhanced. The latter only works on sectors with vegetation. At rank 2, you can either maximize both heals into a single target, or get a massive hit, negative effect removal, or even healing with a bonus to attack power in your arsenal. Choose what suits your play style best.
Elven arrows are the easiest to learn and use. Difficulties abound in using the other classes. Elven shooters have truly eagle vision, so they are able to hit targets at a longer range using the “Aiming Shot” ability. There are also multi-attacks in their arsenal. Second rank units allow you to get either increased damage and bleeding effects at long range with Marauders, or less damage but better control of the battlefield with the Krong Sentry's Repulsion Shot.
Krong Sentry are the only archers who share the passive feature “Krong Guardians” with all Forest Union warriors. Elves are a proud and independent people, so the passive is activated only when units are in the thicket and only if there is no other ally in the neighboring sector. Thus, the units can get a very solid bonus to attack, which can turn them into real killing machines. Elven warriors have excellent mobility thanks to their jerks and the ability to deal splash damage. At rank two you may prefer the more armored koppers, the Krong Guards, which can push back opponents and hit two opponents through and bleed them both!
That left the agile players and leaders to take on the burden of the most difficult synergy in the formation, or even the entire game. The first and second ranked leaders, Ents and Huorns, are able to plant seeds that create the very vegetation mentioned at the beginning of this article, Forest Cover. As the seed grows, the cover turns into a Krongha Forest, greatly enhancing all the bonuses of the units standing on the cells. Huorn also has the same feature as warriors. As a guardian of the Krong, he gets an even greater bonus when standing in vegetation with no units nearby! Nymphs and Dryads, first and second ranked agility players, can use vegetation sectors for invisibility. The latter also have the Symbiosis ability, which multiplies their survivability in the forest sector. The Forest Union also has its own boost for the whole team - just use “Call of the Ents” with your Huorn.
We haven't forgotten about Undines and Dark Gworns either. Grim inhabitants of the swamps, brutally killing anyone who accidentally wanders into the swamps. And the features of these creepy units are corresponding. Dark Gworn plants a tainted seed that grows into a gloomy tree, spreading swamp cells around that he and Undine can use. Not only do swamp sectors significantly lower the attack and defense of all units standing on them (except Gworn and Undine, of course), but they also give swamp dwellers the ability to poison enemies when attacking. Undine is able not only to use invisibility in the swamp, but also to teleport from one desecrated sector to another. However, there is a price to pay for such power: swamp sectors weaken allies as well, and the characteristics of these two are lower than those of their “kinder brethren”.
And this is not all the features of the faction. By no means neglect the elves. In skillful hands it is a real weapon.