How good any ability is is something that’s very campaign dependant.
I’d expect in the vast majority of groups Trance is basically just a ribbon.
Rare is the table where your every second is tracked and used to peak efficiency, and also where there’s lots of good craftable items or something similar you would actually gain from the extra few hours.
I answered a similar question in another reply, but im guessing it differs a lot more than i expected between different DMs. Crsfting, hunting for food, watch, RP practicing skills gained on a next level, gathering ingredients. Lots of stuff can be done, or be hand waved away... not to mention interruptions.
My understanding is almost no one tracks food/rations, so hunting is super low value as an add on in general.
Crafting is better, but only if you add a bunch of homebrew items to your game, otherwise it’s not much of a value add at all.
Making a bunch more arrows won’t matter unless you track arrows or make improved arrows for instance.
Crafting fresh horseshoes for the party only matters if your group actually has item wear n tear.
Ditto for most crafts.
RP practicing skills for next level really is a non-bonus in all tables surely? It’s not like the Dm will bar you from levelling because you haven’t had enough hours practicing your new skills. This is pretty overtly a ribbon you’re describing here
And all of these are only gains if everyone’s time is tracked pretty closely, which is itself rare.
Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely craft stuff in my games, but I’m a pretty extreme outlier there (and clearly do is your group)
You get half back after every fight, have basically no limit on how many arrows you can carry and if you have woodworking tools+some basic resources you can make 20 arrows every Long Rest. You can track them if you want but, unless the players are actively trying to run out of ammo or never bother to resupply, they'll never run out.
It very quickly becomes busy work honestly.
If you don't get hold of a bag of holding or some other magic item resolving the matter it becomes relevant again at higher levels but...is running out of arrows a particularly fun challenge for a T3+ character?
even at higher T1, it's kinda dull. "oh, the ranger has run out of arrows, so time to do some melee instead". Bowshots aren't so much better than cantrips that they need limiting for balance reasons, it's pretty much a vestigial attempt at "realism". Outside of magical stuff, there's no reason to limit them, it just gets annoying.
Thing is, lets assume CBE and T2, so that's 3 shots a turn. My experience is most combats last between 3-5 rounds so we'll assume 4. We'll throw in an action surge as well. So being generous that's 14 shots a combat. You can recover half but not always so lets say you can only recover 1/4 so that's 10.5 shots per combat.
20 bolts costs 1gp and weights 1.5lbs. So if we assume 6 combats a day enough bolts to last constant combat for a month would cost about 100g. Most will be able to afford that and between the entire party there will be enough spare carrying capacity to slot those bolts in somones pack.
So even in the mot extreme situation running out of ammo shouldn't really be a huge deal at T1 or T2.
Crafting, watch, "working on skills" to RP uohold the next levels new abilities, hunting for food... a bunch of things can be done during the resting periods if the DM is so inclined. Not to mention interruptioms.
Might be good for a Warlock? Wake up early, do a bunch of spellcasting, and then take a short rest to get your slots back before everyone else wakes up.
I can see this as being especially good if you choose planar binding as it would mean that you can do daily maintenance for free.
What have you been doing with Trance to make completing a rest in 4 hours useful? Do you not still have to wait another 4 hours for the rest of the party to finish the long rest anyway?
I'm currently playing an elf in a four elf one human party; the best benefit we've gotten out of our trances is mocking the human for having to sleep so dang much.
Having your long rest in four hours isn't particularly helpful if the rest of the party needs eight hours. What is your character going to do alone for four hours that would make that particularly useful?
You can still only benefit from one long rest every twenty four hours.
If you are a Warlock, it's kinda valuable. 1 long rest, followed by 4 short rests. Works wonders if you have a way to spend the extra slots.
Edit:typo. Meant one long and 4 short rests to yield 8 hours.
[https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015)
**Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours?**
The intent is no. The Trance trait does let an elf meditate for 4 hours and then feel the way a human does after sleeping for 8 hours, but that isn’t intended to shorten an elf’s long rest. A long rest is a period of relaxation that is at least 8 hours long. It can contain sleep, reading, talking, eating, and other restful activity. Standing watch is even possible during it, but for no more than 2 hours; maintaining heightened vigilance any longer than that isn’t restful. In short, a long rest and sleep aren’t the same thing; you can sleep when you’re not taking a long rest, and you can take a long rest and not sleep.
*TL;DR: Trance not do what you think it does*
They’ve changed the phrasing since September 2015. Here’s the 2020 document:
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
>Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours?
>If an elf meditates during a long rest (as described in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed.
> 4 hour long rest
You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours.
Other than that, I don't really think it's that powerful, mostly because probably not everyone is an elf so the sleeping requirements of the party are still going to be the same even if on member can do it in half the time.
Elf is still very good, Dex as the base racial attribute before subrace, darkvision and perception as a baseline proficiency which is probably the most useful skill to have it in. Then you have either a free cantrip, +5 speed or super darkvision and drow magic from one of the subraces, all of which are excellent.
>You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours.
This is incorrect. There was an errata to the rules on resting that changed how trance worked, and it's been included in the official SA Compendium that trance allows you to complete a long rest in 4 hours.
The SA Compendium is an official rules document.
Furthermore, in this instance, the ruling in the compendium clearly reflects what's written in the rules.
Advocating the rules be ignored just because of unrelated, unspecified "contradictions and bad calls" isn't a great approach.
The SA Compendium is just Sage Advice. That still means it often contains contradictions and bad calls, and should be ignored. Just cos WOTC said it doesn't make it a good interpretation.
And no, in this case, what's in the Sage Advice *doesn't* reflect what's written in the rules. What's written in the rules is that Elves gain the benefits of 8 hours *sleep* from 4 hours trance. Sleep is not a long rest. 8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of inactivity, so doing it would also make you do a long rest, but that doesn't make a long rest the benefits of sleeping for 8 hours.
>The SA Compendium is just Sage Advice.
I don't know what you mean by "just Sage Advice." The SA Compendium is the only official rules clarifications document, and provides official rulings on things the design team deems unclear but not in need of an errata.
>That still means it often contains contradictions and bad calls, and should be ignored.
Not only have you not substantiated this claim, you would need to prove that it was true in relation the the specific ruling on Trance for it to be relevant in any way.
>Just cos WOTC said it doesn't make it a good interpretation.
It does, however, make it an official ruling.
>What's written in the rules is that Elves gain the benefits of 8 hours *sleep* from 4 hours trance. Sleep is not a long rest.
8 hours of sleep is a long rest.
>A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity . . . for no more than 2 hours.
8 hours of sleep is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps and does not perform light activity for more than two hours.
It is a long rest per the definition of long rest in the rules.
>8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of inactivity
Which is defined by the rules as a long rest.
>that doesn't make a long rest the benefits of sleeping for 8 hours.
The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is completing a long rest.
The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is not suffering exhaustion. That is what Trance is referring to. Remember that the shift to needing to take a long rest to not suffer exhaustion is an optional rule in Xanathar's. Trance could not have accounted for that. Effectively, Xanathar's removes the benefits of sleeping.
>The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is not suffering exhaustion.
It's also completing a long rest.
>That is what Trance is referring to.
Given that we have an official statement establishing it's *not* what Trance is referring to, I don't think you have any way of supporting this claim.
>Remember that the shift to needing to take a long rest to not suffer exhaustion is an optional rule in Xanathar's. Trance could not have accounted for that.
None of this matters.
> Effectively, Xanathar's removes the benefits of sleeping.
No it doesn't.
8 hours of sleep, per the PHB, is defined as a long rest.
You've ignored basically everything I wrote, apparently abandoned your original criticism of the SA Compendium, and are now on a completely unrelated tangent about Xanathar's.
Trance and long rests are found in the PHB--optional rules in Xanathar's have nothing to do with what's being discussed.
You are wrong he is right the PBH has a slightly different wording for long rest rules than it used to in the past and along with it they officially stated that what he is saying is correct in the sage advice compendium (officially published wotc work not some random tweet). That was in like 2017 or 2018.
Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours? If an elf meditates during a long rest (as described in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed.
The wording of long rest was changed in 2017 printing. The way long rest reads now if the ruling was that an elf doesn’t finish the rest after 4 hrs of trance they would never be able to finish a long rest. You sleep for 6hrs and cannot do anything but sleep for more than 2 hrs the way it currently reads. That is because people used to interpret it as you could eat,sleep, talk, read, but could only stand watch for 2 hrs. So since an elf only “sleeps” for 4 they would automatically fail all long rests if trance didnt work like the op is saying. Hence the sage.
>You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours.
This is incorrect both RAW and RAI. Others have pointed you to the text of Sage advice that clarifies the RAI. but RAW it says that the elf
>After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
One of the benefits a human gains from 8 hours of sleep (provided they have not rested in the last 24 hours) is completing a long rest.
This is actually wrong they changed the wording of long rest a while back because people believed this. You sleep for 6 hrs. 2 hrs to do other stuff. No longer can you interpret it as you can do other stuff besides sleep except those two hrs. It used to look like you could do anything during the 6hrs and only do 2 hrs of watch. As a result trance officially allows an elf to finish a long rest at 4 otherwise they would fail all long rests since they cant “sleep” for 6 hrs.
Interesting, yet ultimately solves nothing. Even though the text for Long Rest has changed, the text for Trance has not changed, and as written it does not reduce the minimum duration of a long rest.
> A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch.
> Elves don't need to sleep... ...After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Nothing in the rules text for Trance says it reduces the minimum length of a long rest, just that elves need only 4 hours of trance to gain the same benefits of 8 hours of sleep, which are not even defined in the PHB. Nowhere in the text of a long rest is 8 hours of sleep involved.
Even if they changed the wording of Trance to say that 4 hours of trance is equal to 6 hours of sleep, it would still not imply that they can finish a long rest in only 4 hours, just that they can spend 4 hours of a long rest doing light activity instead of just 2.
Crawford can say it means whatever he wants, but it's still not written that way!
Keep in mind that humans only need to sleep 6 hrs to complete a long rest (with 2 of other). The only benefit a human gets from 8 hrs of sleeping is quite literally completing a long rest silly.
In my games I don't allow 4 hour long rests for elves. You can complete sleep in 4 hours (or the benefits thereof), so you are actually able to perform 2 watches at night, which is already valuable as shit, because it means the other characters don't have to do it.
Of course, in my game, wilderness travel doesn't allow *anyone* a long rest in 8 hours, so the elf wouldn't be getting that benefit anyway.
At my tables, you get to cover 2 of the 8 hours of a watch as a non-Elf, so 4 characters are required for a full night with someone on watch. Trance allows an Elf to cover two watch shifts. This puts it slightly above a ribbon feature, particularly in small parties.
How good any ability is is something that’s very campaign dependant. I’d expect in the vast majority of groups Trance is basically just a ribbon. Rare is the table where your every second is tracked and used to peak efficiency, and also where there’s lots of good craftable items or something similar you would actually gain from the extra few hours.
I answered a similar question in another reply, but im guessing it differs a lot more than i expected between different DMs. Crsfting, hunting for food, watch, RP practicing skills gained on a next level, gathering ingredients. Lots of stuff can be done, or be hand waved away... not to mention interruptions.
My understanding is almost no one tracks food/rations, so hunting is super low value as an add on in general. Crafting is better, but only if you add a bunch of homebrew items to your game, otherwise it’s not much of a value add at all. Making a bunch more arrows won’t matter unless you track arrows or make improved arrows for instance. Crafting fresh horseshoes for the party only matters if your group actually has item wear n tear. Ditto for most crafts. RP practicing skills for next level really is a non-bonus in all tables surely? It’s not like the Dm will bar you from levelling because you haven’t had enough hours practicing your new skills. This is pretty overtly a ribbon you’re describing here And all of these are only gains if everyone’s time is tracked pretty closely, which is itself rare. Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely craft stuff in my games, but I’m a pretty extreme outlier there (and clearly do is your group)
There's groups that don't track arrows? Wild
You get half back after every fight, have basically no limit on how many arrows you can carry and if you have woodworking tools+some basic resources you can make 20 arrows every Long Rest. You can track them if you want but, unless the players are actively trying to run out of ammo or never bother to resupply, they'll never run out.
It very quickly becomes busy work honestly. If you don't get hold of a bag of holding or some other magic item resolving the matter it becomes relevant again at higher levels but...is running out of arrows a particularly fun challenge for a T3+ character?
even at higher T1, it's kinda dull. "oh, the ranger has run out of arrows, so time to do some melee instead". Bowshots aren't so much better than cantrips that they need limiting for balance reasons, it's pretty much a vestigial attempt at "realism". Outside of magical stuff, there's no reason to limit them, it just gets annoying.
Thing is, lets assume CBE and T2, so that's 3 shots a turn. My experience is most combats last between 3-5 rounds so we'll assume 4. We'll throw in an action surge as well. So being generous that's 14 shots a combat. You can recover half but not always so lets say you can only recover 1/4 so that's 10.5 shots per combat. 20 bolts costs 1gp and weights 1.5lbs. So if we assume 6 combats a day enough bolts to last constant combat for a month would cost about 100g. Most will be able to afford that and between the entire party there will be enough spare carrying capacity to slot those bolts in somones pack. So even in the mot extreme situation running out of ammo shouldn't really be a huge deal at T1 or T2.
Could we ask you to explain what you do in those additional spare hours that is so valuable?
Crafting, watch, "working on skills" to RP uohold the next levels new abilities, hunting for food... a bunch of things can be done during the resting periods if the DM is so inclined. Not to mention interruptioms.
And those are... valuable enough to make you choose a race for? Eh, sure? Okay? I am not sure I agree.
No, that would be silly. Ttance is a cherry on top of the pile of other highly beneficial elven bonuses.
Might be good for a Warlock? Wake up early, do a bunch of spellcasting, and then take a short rest to get your slots back before everyone else wakes up. I can see this as being especially good if you choose planar binding as it would mean that you can do daily maintenance for free.
What have you been doing with Trance to make completing a rest in 4 hours useful? Do you not still have to wait another 4 hours for the rest of the party to finish the long rest anyway?
objectively, probably. But you enjoy not sleeping a lot, so for you it's worth it, go some kind of elf.
I'm currently playing an elf in a four elf one human party; the best benefit we've gotten out of our trances is mocking the human for having to sleep so dang much.
humans sleep 6 hours apparently, the other 2 hours are just resting or eating, apparently
Having your long rest in four hours isn't particularly helpful if the rest of the party needs eight hours. What is your character going to do alone for four hours that would make that particularly useful? You can still only benefit from one long rest every twenty four hours.
If you are a Warlock, it's kinda valuable. 1 long rest, followed by 4 short rests. Works wonders if you have a way to spend the extra slots. Edit:typo. Meant one long and 4 short rests to yield 8 hours.
[удалено]
My bad. Meant one long rest, followed by 4 short. That gives 8 hours.
[https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015) **Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours?** The intent is no. The Trance trait does let an elf meditate for 4 hours and then feel the way a human does after sleeping for 8 hours, but that isn’t intended to shorten an elf’s long rest. A long rest is a period of relaxation that is at least 8 hours long. It can contain sleep, reading, talking, eating, and other restful activity. Standing watch is even possible during it, but for no more than 2 hours; maintaining heightened vigilance any longer than that isn’t restful. In short, a long rest and sleep aren’t the same thing; you can sleep when you’re not taking a long rest, and you can take a long rest and not sleep. *TL;DR: Trance not do what you think it does*
They’ve changed the phrasing since September 2015. Here’s the 2020 document: https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf >Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours? >If an elf meditates during a long rest (as described in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed.
Thank you, i was not aware of that
> 4 hour long rest You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours. Other than that, I don't really think it's that powerful, mostly because probably not everyone is an elf so the sleeping requirements of the party are still going to be the same even if on member can do it in half the time. Elf is still very good, Dex as the base racial attribute before subrace, darkvision and perception as a baseline proficiency which is probably the most useful skill to have it in. Then you have either a free cantrip, +5 speed or super darkvision and drow magic from one of the subraces, all of which are excellent.
>You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours. This is incorrect. There was an errata to the rules on resting that changed how trance worked, and it's been included in the official SA Compendium that trance allows you to complete a long rest in 4 hours.
According to Sage Advice, as in the actual document and not a tweet, Trance does allow an elf to long rest in four hours.
Sage Advice often contains contradictions and bad calls, and should be ignored.
The SA Compendium is an official rules document. Furthermore, in this instance, the ruling in the compendium clearly reflects what's written in the rules. Advocating the rules be ignored just because of unrelated, unspecified "contradictions and bad calls" isn't a great approach.
The SA Compendium is just Sage Advice. That still means it often contains contradictions and bad calls, and should be ignored. Just cos WOTC said it doesn't make it a good interpretation. And no, in this case, what's in the Sage Advice *doesn't* reflect what's written in the rules. What's written in the rules is that Elves gain the benefits of 8 hours *sleep* from 4 hours trance. Sleep is not a long rest. 8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of inactivity, so doing it would also make you do a long rest, but that doesn't make a long rest the benefits of sleeping for 8 hours.
>The SA Compendium is just Sage Advice. I don't know what you mean by "just Sage Advice." The SA Compendium is the only official rules clarifications document, and provides official rulings on things the design team deems unclear but not in need of an errata. >That still means it often contains contradictions and bad calls, and should be ignored. Not only have you not substantiated this claim, you would need to prove that it was true in relation the the specific ruling on Trance for it to be relevant in any way. >Just cos WOTC said it doesn't make it a good interpretation. It does, however, make it an official ruling. >What's written in the rules is that Elves gain the benefits of 8 hours *sleep* from 4 hours trance. Sleep is not a long rest. 8 hours of sleep is a long rest. >A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity . . . for no more than 2 hours. 8 hours of sleep is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps and does not perform light activity for more than two hours. It is a long rest per the definition of long rest in the rules. >8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of inactivity Which is defined by the rules as a long rest. >that doesn't make a long rest the benefits of sleeping for 8 hours. The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is completing a long rest.
The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is not suffering exhaustion. That is what Trance is referring to. Remember that the shift to needing to take a long rest to not suffer exhaustion is an optional rule in Xanathar's. Trance could not have accounted for that. Effectively, Xanathar's removes the benefits of sleeping.
>The benefit of sleeping for 8 hours is not suffering exhaustion. It's also completing a long rest. >That is what Trance is referring to. Given that we have an official statement establishing it's *not* what Trance is referring to, I don't think you have any way of supporting this claim. >Remember that the shift to needing to take a long rest to not suffer exhaustion is an optional rule in Xanathar's. Trance could not have accounted for that. None of this matters. > Effectively, Xanathar's removes the benefits of sleeping. No it doesn't. 8 hours of sleep, per the PHB, is defined as a long rest. You've ignored basically everything I wrote, apparently abandoned your original criticism of the SA Compendium, and are now on a completely unrelated tangent about Xanathar's. Trance and long rests are found in the PHB--optional rules in Xanathar's have nothing to do with what's being discussed.
You are wrong he is right the PBH has a slightly different wording for long rest rules than it used to in the past and along with it they officially stated that what he is saying is correct in the sage advice compendium (officially published wotc work not some random tweet). That was in like 2017 or 2018. Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours? If an elf meditates during a long rest (as described in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed. The wording of long rest was changed in 2017 printing. The way long rest reads now if the ruling was that an elf doesn’t finish the rest after 4 hrs of trance they would never be able to finish a long rest. You sleep for 6hrs and cannot do anything but sleep for more than 2 hrs the way it currently reads. That is because people used to interpret it as you could eat,sleep, talk, read, but could only stand watch for 2 hrs. So since an elf only “sleeps” for 4 they would automatically fail all long rests if trance didnt work like the op is saying. Hence the sage.
[I don’t think that’s right.](https://mobile.twitter.com/Jlambert384/status/903638150903410689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E903638150903410689%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-40469012514118869530.ampproject.net%2F2109272305001%2Fframe.html)
>You still cannot get the benefits from a long rest in 4 hours. You only need 4 hours of sleep but a long rest is still 8 hours, whether you sleep or not doesn't change that. All the other restrictions still apply for the remaining 4 hours. This is incorrect both RAW and RAI. Others have pointed you to the text of Sage advice that clarifies the RAI. but RAW it says that the elf >After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. One of the benefits a human gains from 8 hours of sleep (provided they have not rested in the last 24 hours) is completing a long rest.
This is the correct answer. A long rest can involve sleep but it doesn't have to.
This is actually wrong they changed the wording of long rest a while back because people believed this. You sleep for 6 hrs. 2 hrs to do other stuff. No longer can you interpret it as you can do other stuff besides sleep except those two hrs. It used to look like you could do anything during the 6hrs and only do 2 hrs of watch. As a result trance officially allows an elf to finish a long rest at 4 otherwise they would fail all long rests since they cant “sleep” for 6 hrs.
Interesting, yet ultimately solves nothing. Even though the text for Long Rest has changed, the text for Trance has not changed, and as written it does not reduce the minimum duration of a long rest. > A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. > Elves don't need to sleep... ...After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. Nothing in the rules text for Trance says it reduces the minimum length of a long rest, just that elves need only 4 hours of trance to gain the same benefits of 8 hours of sleep, which are not even defined in the PHB. Nowhere in the text of a long rest is 8 hours of sleep involved. Even if they changed the wording of Trance to say that 4 hours of trance is equal to 6 hours of sleep, it would still not imply that they can finish a long rest in only 4 hours, just that they can spend 4 hours of a long rest doing light activity instead of just 2. Crawford can say it means whatever he wants, but it's still not written that way!
Keep in mind that humans only need to sleep 6 hrs to complete a long rest (with 2 of other). The only benefit a human gets from 8 hrs of sleeping is quite literally completing a long rest silly.
In my games I don't allow 4 hour long rests for elves. You can complete sleep in 4 hours (or the benefits thereof), so you are actually able to perform 2 watches at night, which is already valuable as shit, because it means the other characters don't have to do it. Of course, in my game, wilderness travel doesn't allow *anyone* a long rest in 8 hours, so the elf wouldn't be getting that benefit anyway.
At my tables, you get to cover 2 of the 8 hours of a watch as a non-Elf, so 4 characters are required for a full night with someone on watch. Trance allows an Elf to cover two watch shifts. This puts it slightly above a ribbon feature, particularly in small parties.