As far as champions, a storm with a polearm beats an elf with a staff or polearm in my experience. Perhaps not in communing ability, but in damage and tanking ability I found elves to be considerably less tanky. In many pk fights my storm giant wouldn't get hit once, while my elf would get chunked down. During ranking my stormie could go indefinitely while the elf would have to rest. Admittedly, my stormie was a long time ago so things might have changed.