Class and race diversity, OK…
However, is there a reasonable reason about the tauren rogues? I remember that in 2010 there was a good story behind tauren priests and paladins. I don’t see anything similar in 2022…
Or does the Warcraft team no longer care about the lore?
With the class fantasy as broad as it is, there was never a good lore reason against them, so they don’t need one for them. Tauren pirates were always a thing.
But considering mage and priest combinations had no explanation either… yeah, don’t expect Blizzard to care too much about that. When in doubt, assume that their allies trained them, and that’s it.
Isn’t the fact that we’ve seen Tauren pirates since vanilla in Booty Bay enough?
None. It doesn’t make any sense.
Rogues are a class (along with warriors and hunters) that are very easy to justify for all races. They can be specific things (Deathstalkers, SI:7, Shattered Hand…), but also just fighters with a less traditional way of combating the enemy.
Also, think tauren pirates. Bloodsail Buccaneers, Mr. Smite and so on…
Some Grimtotem and some Pirates were rogue-ish i suppose so it’s not entirely without precedent. Because how could a 10ft tall minotaur wielding a tree trunk be anything other than stealthy. 
I believe the logic for Hunters, Warriors, Mages and Rogues is that it’s stuff anyone could learn, without any real obstructions in their race’s story or biological limitations. (Unlike say Undead Paladin or Night Elf Warlock)
Actually you’re right, they didn’t try and put much effort into displaying those combinations during late SL and pretpatch yet.
A -good- lore reason? No, none exist and quite frankly its pretty clear Blizz’s standpoint is that one doesn’t need to anymore. They’ll add it to the game anyway because gameplay takes precedence over lore flavour now.
Obviously you can try to handpick very niche cases of nameless tauren npcs that happens to use a couple of rogue abilities and say it’s a strong basis for players being able to create one, but that’s not what I’d consider a good lore reason.
A good example would be a sect of tauren assassins/thieves/outlaws with named characters who are horde friendly & somehow play a part in a questing zones story, no matter how insignificant that part. But that’s all assuming taurens fit the rogue archetype at all, which in culture & tradition, they do not.
Why would you need a Tauren organisation to explain Tauren becoming rogues, though? They don’t exactly need to be trained in Thunderbluff, and even less by a Tauren to b e trained at all. There are plenty of other organizations around that have no principal reason to forbid Tauren entrance.
Because if you’re going to make decisions to allow a race that clearly doesn’t embody a classes qualities, to be able to play them. It makes more sense to me if there’s an in-game exclusion to the rule.
When Blizz created WoW they didn’t just pick race/class combos out of a hat you know, they allowed certain races to play classes which thematically suited their culture & factions. And whilst I can see leeway for some of those choices to be softened (human hunters for example) I personally think a lot of them should have never have been allowed in favour of race flavour.
But as a said… 2022 blizz cares more about appealing to the player’s time & money than they care about staying true to lore themes this game once had.
…why, though? Sorry, you’re just restating what you said, and I really don’t see why that would be. Why is it wrong in principle for you to be able to play an atypical Tauren?
I take it you’re in favour of allowing all races to play all classes then which is 100% on the horizon then?
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but a race used to mean something more than just another set of animations to me.
In theory? Yes. In practice? No. If the new combinations were actually mostly a gameplay thing and they wouldn’t create any new lore for it, I would have no problems with it. I don’t see any problem with the player hero not being a typical reflecion of his race.
If they create some unnecessariy explanations why rogues actually fit Tauren totally well, and put Tauren rogues everywhere, that’s where I have a problem. And that’s what I’m expecting and dreading for the more high fantasy classes from Blizzard. I’m quite happy with the Tauren player being some pirate or Uncrowned recruit or somesuch. I’m not ok with a rogue school in Orgrimmar Thunderbluff, because the Tauren culture looked at rogues and thought to themselves “well, those ninjas are neat, let’s get some!”.
Or put another way: I have no problem with Blizzard giving our gameplay more options. I have a problem with creating shoddy lore, purely to justify those options.
Isn’t that exactly how we ended up with Sunwalker tauren paladins though? So you’d have preferred no mention of any tauren paladins being added to the game/lore prior to allowing players to pick that class?
It’s a dark day in any roleplaying game when your class or race is baseless when it comes to lore imho.
Sure. I’d have preferred a playable Tauren Argent Dawn paladin or the one Tauren Blood Knight over “acktshually, we forgot that we revered the sun god all along. Silly us.”. Especially looking back and seeing how well they treated Sunwalker lore afterwards.
Or we could you know, do neither and not add classes to races that don’t fit their themes. Enjoy your homogenized races coming over the next couple of years I guess.
You’re not really reading what I’m writing, if that’s your takeaway, I guess.
I too seem conflicted about this race-class combination.
On one hand as mentioned before - “rogue” is very board term. It can encompass anything from an assasin, hitman or spy, through thiefs, burglars and picpockets ending it with various bandits, highwayman, pirates (which are tbh just sailor-bandits) or some moraly grey shady characters like merceneries or bounty hunters.
So sure any race should be able to pick them right?
On the other Taurens aren’t really built for stealthy or agile professions. Their racial traits are more simillar to that of a bull - strong and resilient. While I can imagine Tauren sneaking up upon someone after seeing Fel Reavers in Hellfire Pennisula or Devilosaurs in Un’Goro pulling it off but Tauren with his massive, three fingered hands pickpocketing someone or picking a lock?
There is also whole cultural aspect to it. Thunderbluff and Highmountain Taurens are mostly noble, wise, peaceful and nature loving. Not your typical candidate for an assasin or a ruthless mercenary. Seems like this type of Taurens go join up Grimtotem and such. Same why mages dont really suit them aswell. Knowledge seeking Tauren would rather meditate or ask his ancesotrs for wisdom. Not draw magic circles and runes or perform magical research and experiments.
So here is my biggest issue. Races in WoW (and most fantasy and sci-fi in general) are mostly humans with few cultural and personality traits overdeveloped and few other missing. A bit of a stereotypes made flesh. If than we take those traits away saying that all TB and HM Taurens as sentient beings can choose their own fate and just like humans can be good, bad, wise or dumb etc, than we will end up with simply recolored humans. What’s the point of having X speccies if they are all the same - your ordinary humans with bizzare anatomy?
Than again culutres change and evolve. What we knew about Taurens or Night Elves from WarCraft III might be simply outdated because how living with their new allies affected them. After all Draenei have shamans because of their more tirbal, Broken cousins teaching them shamanistic ways when they both started to live togather. Wait so does this mean Horde have bad influance on poor cow-people, and there are now old Taurens in Mulgore going all “back in my days Taurens were Taurens!”? Is it like with Halloween replacing local traditions across Europe?
Told you I’m conflicted about this…
An easy enough explanation could be the Grimtotem clan returning under the High Chief. The Shattered Hand has never gotten much love either outside WoD and a little bit of lip service either. Tauren mages make even less sense tbh.
This overall homogenisation of all the races is kind of a reaction to contemporary american political climate and the whole lawsuit thing. Not great for people who care about the lore and distinct identities for the different factions/races. /shrug
I find it a bit strange to think that class restrictions help racial identity. I am all for racial identity, but that requires them to tell specific racial stories, nothing less, nothing more. The Uncrowned can be multiracial without undermining Tauren identity, and so on.