Elf Racial Traits

As an Elf, which race traits you equip will depend on three things: your class, your level and which traits you have earned.

Free and Premium players have an additional consideration: you start with only two race trait slots. Of the four traits types, buying more race trait slots should be your lowest priority. Simply equip your best two.

Elves have a pretty easy time killing the mobs they need for their race deeds, with the exception of drakes. Group up for these unless you are significantly overlevel to them.

Which Race Traits to Equip as an Elf

The list below is ordered from most useful to least useful. Pick the first five (or two, if you are Free or Premium) that apply to you!

Eldar's Grace, the elf emergency skill, is fairly helpful to every class. Just make sure to face your attacker if pop this skill - it only applies to front melee damage.
Return to Rivendell is helpful for most classes, with the exception of elven hunters and wardens who have alternate travel skills. Much of the later game content connects to Rivendell, making this a superior "Return to" skill.
Friend of Man (+20 Fate) will be helpful to most players, providing faster in-combat power and morale regeneration rates. Elven rune-keepers, lore-masters and minstrels will benefit from larger, more frequent criticals for tactical skills (including heals).
Silvan Shadows, is helpful when you need to sneak past some baddies to complete a quest or rejoin your group. Consider carrying some +stealth gear as Silvan Shadows gives -3 to your effective stealth level.
The Elf Bow-damage Bonus adds a 2% damage with a bow. Really great for elven hunters, but only marginally valuable for elven guardians and champions.
The Elf One-handed Sword-damage Bonus adds a little extra damage if you melee with a sword.
The Tactics and Conviction Bonus adds more power and morale recovery to fellowship maneuvers if you go blue or green. Could be useful depending on your class and how much you group.
Virtuous Elf is useful if you need another rank of these virtues and have a spare race trait slot. Not many players trait Patience or Charity, so this is pretty situational.
Power of the Eldar is of questionable use for boss fights with the possible exception of the Lieutenant fight in Barad Guldur. Power pools tend to be smaller than morale pools, especially in aggregate across a fellowship, so you don't get much more total power than you spent to cast this. If you do use it, be sure you have a way to recover the power it uses.

Elf Race Traits

Deed-based

Level	TP	Deed	Objective	Where to Hunt at Level (earlier locations also work)	Trait	Trait Effect
13	5	Enmity of the Goblins	Defeat 50 goblins	West of Duillond (Ered Luin) there are goblin camps in Dol Ringwest and Rath Teraig.	Silvan Shadows	Enables stealth (-3 stealth level) with decreased movement speed. Can be used every 30 minutes.
19	10	Enmity of the Goblins II	Defeat 100 goblins	West of Duillond (Ered Luin) there are goblin camps in Dol Ringwest and Rath Teraig.	Tactics and Conviction Bonus	+5% to Stallion's Spirit (blue) and Eagle's Cry (green) Fellowship Maneuvers
25	15	Enmity of the Goblins III	Defeat 150 goblins	North of the Forsaken Inn or Minas Eriol (Lone-lands)	Elf Bow-damage Bonus	+2% to bow damage
13	5	Enmity of the Orcs	Defeat 50 orcs	Cirith Nur and other orc camps in Northern Bree-fields	Friend of Man	+20 Fate
29	10	Enmity of the Orcs II	Defeat 150 orcs	Glumhallow (Lone-lands), Ost Cyrn (Lone-lands), Kingsfell (North Downs) or Nan Wathren (North Downs)	Return to Rivendell	Once an hour port to Rivendell. Uses 1 travel ration and shares a cooldown timer with other "Return to" skills.
35	15	Enmity of the Orcs III	Defeat 250 orcs	Dol Dinen (North Downs) or Ram Duath (Angmar)	Eldar's Grace	+75% parry and +5% partial parry 10 seconds. Applies to frontal melee attacks only. Can be used once an hour.
29	5	Enmity of the Drakes	Defeat 100 drakes	Ram Duath (Angmar). You may want to group up for these.	Elf One-handed Sword-damage Bonus	+2% to One-handed Sword Damage
35	10	Enmity of the Drakes II	Defeat 150 drakes	Ram Duath (Angmar). You may want to group up for these.	Power of the Eldar	+2% increase to fellowship power for 10 minutes. Can be used once an hour.
Total: 75

Faction-based

Level	Faction	Standing	How to Earn Faction	Trait	Trait Effect
35	Elves of Rivendell	Friend	Reputation items (which are bartered for faction) drop from level 36+ humanoids in Trollshaws and Misty Mountains. Volume I, Book 4 and Volume I, Book 14 of the epic story and some Eregion deeds reward Elves of Rivendell reputation.	Virtuous Elf	+1 rank of Wisdom, Patience, Charity

Elf Race Traits