All hail Compit, the supreme god who bestows upon us his time and generosity to work on his beautiful game.

The Night Elf race is a fragile, but powerful race with oppressive ranged capabilities and even superb tanky units. The build that I have listed below is optimized to hopefully net the player enough wealth to purchase Wardens at the 30 minutes. This build path I run is rather risky, depending on Shadow Sentries as your frontline for the majority of the time, and not utilizing any combat-focused mid-tier unit to do the damage you need to do. It is essentially taking the Night Elf roster's 3 most basic units, and supercharging their combat effectiveness with spellcaster support.

There are two variations to start the game, one is higher tempo early, while the other is more efficient.

Variation 1: Purchase Archers, Research Marksmanship, Bow Upgrades, Attack Upgrades to 4, Research Shadow Sentries
- The initial start sends you out with high range good damage archers straight out the bat. It is however,  rather expensive, but higher tempo very early. Tempo Gain: Moderate

Variation 2: Purchase Archers, Research Shadow Sentries, Bow Upgrades, Marksmanship Attack Upgrades to 4.
- You miss out on initial Archer damage, but as you upgrade the Bow Upgrades it is very efficient in increasing the damage of all your units while providing your Sentries with a healthy amount of early safety. Highly efficient in cost as well as efficient in Gain/Feed ratio. Tempo Gain: Low

2. Purchase Huntresses, Upgrade Attack to 6.
- With the added buff of Huntresses in 5.4c, they are finally a servicable 1600 gold mid-range unit. Not quite as good as Marines but the early game is no longer so brutal for Night Elf with these units. Evasion is absolutely needed for your Night Elf core. Tempo Loss: Moderate. Tempo Gain: Moderate

2 (Alternative path) Purcahse Druids of the Talon (Crow Form) and Hippogryph Riders, Research Beast armor Upgrades
- This is the build that made Night Elf so extremely oppressive and by and far the strongest race in the game in previous versions. However, it is now only an alternative build path in the case that Horde is not fielding a single Undead player and is not utilizing Crypt Fiends and their autocast web. Druids of the Talon provide moderate but highly useful magic damage along with Faerie fire debuff, and Hippogryph Riders provide long range, powerful, pierce damage that is the bane of Horde spellcasters. Both air units together will achieve critical air mass. Tempo Loss: Moderate. Tempo Gain: Extremely High.

-Purchase Hero/Heroes- I hear Trueshot Aura might be good for this.
Research Evasion and Armor upgrades for Huntresses, archers, and Shadow Sentries.

3. Research Priests, Druids of the Talon (normal), and Respective Upgrades, Research Meditation
- These two support units will provide impressive offensive and defensive support to your entire army.  Tempo Loss: Moderate: Tempo Gain: High

4. Research Druids of the Claw (Bear), Armor Upgrades
- A moderately decent tank unit that provides the Roar Buff to your army. Tempo Loss: High. Tempo Gain: High.

5. Purchase Wardens
- Your army should have a lot of killing power. While this build is easily more expensive than other race builds, you might be pleasantly surprised by how effective it is at killing you still might be able to net Wardens by 30 minutes.


Questions

Question: What about Dryads?
Answer: You might be tempted to purchase Dryads once you have Druids of the Talon and Priests along with Meditation for the efficiency. However, consider your build: while Purchases are a rather tanky for a ranged unit with 2000 HP, you will be going on for a rather extended period of time without having purchased any melee unit, and Dryads are not a substitute for another unit in your core for good, reliable damage.

Question: What about Glaive Throwers?
Answer: Siege is Trash

Question: What is Critical Air Mass?
Answer: Critical Air Mass is the concept that once you have a certain number of flying units on the field, they are stronger than their individual parts, enough so that they are able to negate what typically counters them. For example, Druids of the Talon alone are a good unit, but if you leave them alone they will feed. However, if you purchase Hippo Riders with Druids of the Talon, you have achieved Critical Air Mass in that damage is going to be more diluted amongst all your air units and fewer will die individually. The same concept also applies to Autocast web to a certain extent. If you have Chimeras, Hippo Riders, AND Druids of the Talon, your air force will be much too large and oppressive for Crypt Fiends to effectively shut down your air force.

Question: What about Mountain Giants and Ancient Protectors?
Answer: Both these units are extremely good at what they do for their cost, and that is to tank. However, these are not tempo gaining units, and tempo gain is highly important for this Night Elf army in which your strongest offensive unit is only the Huntress.  This is why I prefer Bears, which are about the same cost as Mountain Giants, as they function as a tank and additional damage support for your entire army.