Or maybe it could, like how it was used in reality, just have lethal attack.
Diordorus wrote about Alexander the Great's Indian campaigns against king Porus:
"And Porus, gathering forty beasts around him, drove at the enemy with the whole mass of his elephants and inflicted grievous losses."
Obviously, War Elephants were quite useful if they were able to crush the macedonian syntagma of the same army that, at the Battle of Issus only lost 450 while slaying 100,000 persians, despite the macedonians and their greek allies being largely outnumbered.
P.S. Just in case you were impressed, I did not know that quote, I actually typed it from a book I am reading about Alexander the Great.
Case in point, I am confused as to why the war elephant was not extremely powerful in the first place.