Elves

Dude, you're a c-elf, once you're a beast, screw armor, go all sandcloth. Once you got your defence, parry and two-handed up there, you WILL be a beast. Offense and such is so easy to raise you'll be critting all the time, and attacking fast as all hell, with any weapon you can pick up. Anything beyond that's just tugging your joystick.

That's the case for any warrior, though. Once your skills get high, you're a beast. But if you're a c-elf, you're just less of a beast than any other race. The amount of damage you lose from elven strength (and from probably not having strength prioritized #1, because why the fuck even play an elf if you're not even gonna try to build around agility?) is extreme, like easily in the region of 50% raw damage per attack. Possibly more.

Typical stats you'll get with a bit of rolling and walking into the silt sea a few times are VG strength and EX agility if you prio agi str end wis. That's probably something like 12 strength, like above average or something for a human. You'll also have a difficult time hitting 110 hp, which is what I'd consider the absolute bare minimum for a long-term combatant as it allows you to survive certain spells at mon, 4-room falls, and maxed backstab.

That agility does very little. I'd say it's something like 10% better dodge chance at best. Some attack speed as well but not an amount corresponding to the difference in damage, nor is attack speed a useful alternative or very well-defined mechanic. Meanwhile, your sandcloth-wearing ass takes loads of damage from every attack that lands, and you don't have the hp to take those hits. You aren't hitting consistently hard, so you aren't reel-locking people. You'll be pretty resistant to getting bashed, but not that much more than a max-height human. Besides, people bash mages, not warriors. Bashing a warrior is suicidal. You want to charge a warrior, and elves aren't exactly better off against a mounted charge.

A human warrior with str end agi wis will easily have EX strength, G agility, and often 120+ hp. You can luck out and roll 130+ hp, but 120 is a good benchmark. With EX strength, you can wear leather armor and remain very light or just about any armor you could possibly want and remain light. The latter is what you want. Wearing chitin plate increases your survivability way, way more than elven agility does. And that human warrior will routinely do grievous wounds etc. even at middling skill, and once he's a beast, he's gonna be three-shotting people left and right.

And the human can ride. That c-elf warrior will have a really hard time getting to the places that you have to go in order to train past journeyman levels. Are you gonna walk up to the northlands?

Or you can be a dwarf and roll 20 strength and just one-shot people with a mace.

Elves suck, man. They just do.

I had a dwarf warrior with ai strength and pretty decent other stats. At 8 days played he died to a tarantula because of a bad decision by a clan leader.