Lineage 2 Classic Dark Elf Guide - The Deadliest Race in L2!

lineage 2 classic dark elf guide

Lineage 2 Dark Elf is one of the core races. It got introduced to the game since the beginning, along Human, Elf, Orc and Dwarf. Similarly to Humans and Elves, they have the access to most of the playstyles existing in the game. This Dark Elf guide will show you all the possibilities of different Dark Elf classes.

You can view the Dark Elves as the edgy race of the game. They worship the goddess Shilen, who’s believed to be the source of all evil in the world. They're proficient in black magic and dark arts. Their looks are also fitting, with their spiky hair, anime-like running animation and the most revealing female armors. All of that makes this race one of the community favorites. As a Dark Elf you’re going to start the game in imaginatively named Dark Elf Village.  

Lineage 2 Dark Elf - strengths and weaknesses

For the best possible understanding of this part, we should take a look at the base statistics. Dark Elf fighters have the highest strength (STR) of all the races. That means they have the potential to deal the most physical damage with a single hit, they also have decent Dexterity (DEX). Meanwhile Dark Elf mystics have the highest Intelligence (INT) that gives their spells the most powerful.

The drawbacks to that are low numbers in other statistics. Dark Elves as a race have the lowest constitution (CON) which results in unimpressive hp bars. The rest of their base statistics is somewhere in the middle of the other races.

Dark Elf classes guide

There are a lot of possibilities when developing a Dark Elf character. It’s important to understand that in Lineage 2 you unlock your proper class at level 40. This is when your character gains most of their identity. Of course there’s a lot of progression after that, but it becomes more linear. Let's take a look at the overview of Dark Elf classes.

Character creation

You have to make your first gameplay related choice during the character creation. This is where you decide whether you want to create a fighter or a mystic.

Dark Fighter

This is the basic physical damage class. There’s nothing unique about it yet, besides the aforementioned highest strength. At level 20 Dark Elven fighters can choose to become the heavy armored Palus Knights or the light armored Assassins with high damage output.

Dark Mystic

Dark Elven Mystic is the early mage class. They will specialize in dark magic and using the power of wind. At level 20 they can decide between becoming the damage-focused Dark Wizard and the supportive Shillien Oracle who can empower their allies with buffs.

First class transfers

Your options options at level 20 are based on the decision you made during your character creation.

Palus Knight

The heavy armored sword-wielding class. Thanks to their base stats and slightly more damage focused kit, they can deal more damage than knights of other races. At level 40 they decide between becoming the tanky Shillien Knights or the more utility-focused dual swords-wielding Bladedancers, who can buff their team (mostly their offensive capabilities) with the battle dances.

Assassin

Assassins are the physical damage dealers among Dark Elves. They can terrorize their enemies with extremely powerful attacks as well as debuffs that will make them more vulnerable. They are very deadly in combat. After hitting level 40 they can become the sneaky dagger wielding Abyss Walkers or the powerful archers - Phantom Rangers.

Dark Wizard

They use the dark magic and elemental power to hurt and debuff their enemies. They combine the high damage output with relatively small mana pool and slow mana recovery speed. Dark Wizard can later become a high DPS dealing Spellhowler or a Phantom Summoner, who sends their evil minions to battle the enemy.

Shillien Oracle

Shillien Oracle is a supportive Dark Elven class. They use dark magic to bless their allies and buff their stats. At level 40 they advance into Shillien Elders.

Second class transfer

The level 40 is one of the most important points of the game, since this is when you make your final choice of the class that you’re going to play. Of course your options at this point are predetermined by the previous choices you made.

Shillen Knight

This is the tank class among the Dark Elves, but in the context of the whole game is more like an offensive tank. Along all the classic tank skills, like the passives  Heavy Armor Mastery and  Shield Mastery, the active taunts –  Aggression and  Aggression Aura, they also have access to some unique abilities.

Shillien Knight can lower enemies physical damage and physical attack with respectively  Hex and  Power Break. They can also summon cubics, small magical objects that can poison, debuff or drain health from enemies.

Some other Shillen Knight’s skills can leech health from the target, inflict bleeding on the enemies or immobilize them as well as simply deal damage to them. Shillen Knight also has a  Lightning Strike skill that deals a lot of damage to the enemy and can paralyze them. They're the opposite of Temple Knight and Paladin - the true tanks, that deal very little damage.

At level 76 they can complete a quest to become a Shillien Templar.

Bladedancer

Bladedancer is a supportive warrior class. Most of their identity lies in the special abilities - battle dances that allow them to buff their party, but they have something more to offer. Using dual swords as weapons and wearing heavy armor they can deal decent damage, while also not being that squishy. Their Elven counterpart - Swordsinger is much less useful in the PvE because of their mostly defensive buffs and low damage output.

They have some damage skills as well as the ability to root their target in place. They can also cast physical attack and physical defense debuffs on their enemies and inflict  bleeding and  poison onto them.  

The battle dances can increase their allies’  physical attack,  critical damage,  attack speed,  magic attack,   accuracy,  life steal and some other statistics.

After level 76 this class can turn into Spectral Dancer, who later unlock the  Dance of Medusa, extremely powerful AoE spell that petrifies enemies. 

Abyss Walker

While they are very squishy for melee characters, they compensate it with a huge damage output. They have the highest burst of all the assassins in Lineage 2, especially if they use their daggers to land the  Backstab and  Deadly Blow. When farming monsters, they can use their skills to avoid the initial aggro.

Along some stealth and burst abilities they also have some debuffs, speed and evasion bonuses as well as the possibility to inflict bleeding and poison onto their enemies. Another important skill is the  Blinding Blow, because it has a chance that the enemy will turn his back towards you, giving you a clear opening for a backstab.

Every dagger wielder is a high risk/high reward class in Lineage 2, but the Abyssal Walker is the most extreme example of that, since they can hit harder than the other classes in that role: Treasure Hunter and Plains Walker, but it's also easier to kill them. Definitely not recommended for the new players.

At level 76 they can turn into a Ghost Hunter and unlock even higher burst and  Bluff, another way of ensuring a Backstab. 

Phantom Ranger

Phantom Ranger is the highest damage archer in the game. Their attack speed is not the highest and they don’t survive long when the enemies get on top of them, but they can decide a fight with a single critical hit at the beginning.

Their kits are pretty similar to other archers, since they mostly rely on the passive  Bow Mastery and  Long Shot and the active  Double Shot. Like all the archers, they're extremely usefull for their clan during situations like siege, raid or mass PvP.

At level 60 they unlock the  Fatal Counter – a powerful finisher skill that’s unique to this class. The archers might be difficult for the new players, since they require some mana management (shooting arrows costs mana in L2). Economically the Phantom Ranger is the best archer choice, because they require less arrows to kill enemies, thanks to the high damage. That allows them to easily get Adena and experience. The other archers, Silver Ranger and Hawkeye can shoot quicker, but they deal less damage.

At level 76, after the third class transfer they can turn into a Ghost Sentinel. 

Spellhowler

It’s the highest intelligence nuker in the game. Spellhowlers use the dark magic and power of wind to deal massive damage to their enemies and cast curses onto them.

They can deal massive damage with their  Hurricane and reduce enemy resistance with  Surrender to Wind. They can use   Silence to prevent enemy from casting spells. Spellhowlers also have some of the best options of managing their mana, having access to  Body to Mind that allows them to sacrifice HP for MP and  Corpse Life Drain that uses the killed monsters to restore high amounts of health for small mana cost.

Spellhowler is a great choice for a DPS mage, their biggest drawback is how squishy they are. They can farm Adena really efficiently in a party with a designated tank. Just make sure the monsters you want to farm don’t a high resistance to wind. Spellhowler is squishier than both the Sorcerer and Spellsinger, but the Dark Elven nuker has the most devastating spells and is the most self-sufficient with mana. 

At 76 you will be able to become a Storm Screamer. It gives you access to more high damage spells, but doesn’t really change your in-game identity.

Phantom Summoner

Phantom Summoner works similarly to the rest of the summoner classes in Lineage 2. They rely on their controllable servitors to do all of the tanking and a big portion of the damage. Phantom Summoner has access to three pets, but you can only have one active. Your choices are  Silhouette,  Shadow and  Soulless. Shadow is probably the easiest one for the beginning. At level 56 you also unlock  Nightshade – the tankiest servitor, who’s able to taunt enemies.

As the Phantom Summoner you will have access to two kinds of armor masteries. There are two ways of playing as the summoning classes. First method is to wear robes, wield staves, focus on mana and casting speed to support and heal your servitor and try dealing damage with  Death Spike and  Dimension Spiral.

The second is using light armor and a melee weapon (dagger, sword or even dual swords) in order to deal damage. This way, while still healing and supporting your pet, you’re able to fight in the frontline alongside it. You’re going to have to decide which one of these playstyles suits you the most.

Remember that summoners excel in solo PvE play. Thanks to low mana cost of Servitor Heal they are very self-sufficient what makes them great for solo grinding, but at the same time they can’t really fit into any role needed in a party that great. Their servitors aren’t reliable tanks in a team environment, their DPS is kind of low in comparison to pure damage classes and most of their heals and buffs work exclusively on servitors.

Summoners also have access to cubics. On case of Phantom Summoner they’re  Spark Cubic that can stun enemies and  Phantom Cubic that lowers their defensive statistics. At level 76 you will be able to turn into a Spectral Master and get a new powerful servitor and cubic along some other skills. 

Shillien Elder

They’re the better version of Shillien Oracles. They have access to strong and quick healing spells, a plethora of different buffs and some roots and debuffs. They can also burn through their enemies’ mana and banish their servitors to another realm. This class can't heal as efficiently as a Bishop, but their heals should be enough until the very late game.

Shillien Elders are mostly (but not exclusively) focused on the offensive buffs, they’re work great with critical hit users and DPS mages. They're the only class with access to magic attack buff -  Empower

At level 76 they turn into Shillien Saints and two levels later get access to an extremely powerful buff called Prophecy of Wind. 

Choose your favorite Lineage 2 Dark Elf class

These are all the classes available for a Dark Elf in Lineage 2 Classic. Similarly to Humans and Elves, they have access to all the basic playstyles of the game. There’s a tank, an archer, a melee DPS dagger user, a nuker, a summoner and two supportive classes.

Due to the high strength for fighters and high intelligence for mystics, the Dark Elves excel at dealing high amounts of damage to their enemies. If you feel like worshipping and evil goddess, or simply want to destroy enemies as fast as possible, a Dark Elf might be the right choice for you.

Lineage II is an MMORPG developed and published by NCSoft. During the character creation, the players can choose from seven playable races: Human, Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Kamael, Ertheia. In the current version of the game, players can complete a chain of quests to make their characters realy strong. They can join clans, slay Raid Bosses, fight in fortress sieges and much more!