The Blanketfort (crying and throwing up) - The Official Solas Thread [Spoilers]

A. It's been thousands of years and we don't know how affected many of these ancient elves are by changes to the world or lenght of Uthenera, plus we do know that there were differences in power levels among ancient elves.

B. Why assume that these warriors and rogues aren't connected to the Fade? Clearly ancient elves fought with normal (or what look like normal) weapons and we have known this long before we discovered Sentinels in ToM, given that bow is considered an elven weapon that is (as are shields or swords) depicted frequently in ancient art. Arcane Warriors are also an ancient elvhen thing. Heck, even some Evanuris used what at least looked like normal weapons (as Andruil used her bow).

And Cole is a spirit, and while he says that he is the way he is because original Cole wanted to be non-magical and thus he sticks to blades, it's quite obvious that he uses his connection to the Fade to be as deadly with those blades as he is. He also suggests that Sera is so good with bow because she is tuned in to the Fade. So ancient elves can be magical and still use their connection most effectively with melee weapons.

And like... I'm fairly sure this guy needs magic to even lift this damn thing