Shaman, which do you think would make the better shaman?
Neither, racials are more aesthetic than for performance.
Sure, you can sim it out and find out that “x” is 0,2% more than “y” but thats not something your average Joe would notice.
1 Like
How about from a lore perspective?
Be an orc!
1 Like
Pick the one with totems u like better. Normal taurens have the vanilla oldschool totem and hm have a high res eagle one. Orcs have the most boring totems out of all the races but if u like a dull axe with a hode logo than pick that. Trolls on the other hand have these cool tiki masks as totems with different mask for every element. Pandarens have a beer keg :D. Lore is the same for both tauren races its just listen to earth mother ,nature and stuff bla bla bla.
Both are equally suitable lorewise and racial wise for a shaman. As their cultures are remarkably similar this really is down to which you think look best (and totems), both approach shamanism the same way (through the Earth mother).
One thing (only really matters if you RP I guess) Highmountain Tauren appear to place emphasis on the elements of earth, sky (air) and river (water), at least from their current primary tribe composition. Kalimdor Tauren make equal reference to all of them, including fire. Not to say HMT don’t use it, but it may not be as prominent. That’s the only “shamanistic lore” difference I can think of.
Maybe base it upon planned trades kill. If you’re using mining, HMT, if herbing, regular. If both… Well back to square one.
1 Like
Both are equal in this, perhaps the only thing is you could easily attribute yourself to the Rivermane tribe as they are Shaman, and you get more aesthetics.
U cant go wrong with dwarf 
It doesn’t matter, because they have more or less the same culture…
Remarkably similar actually, considering they’ve been separated for thousands of years.
Get that honour bound rep going brorc,
Get a Mag dookin har orc baby. Lok tar brother
I feel like tauren cultures feels better for than orc aha sorry, and zug zug to you!
HM and Kalimdor Tauren have pretty much the same culture and value shamanism equally, so it’s really just about which one you think looks cooler.
I seem to be conflicted on wether to go for a HM tauren or an orginal, as normal taurens have been here from the start
We’ll, the Kalimdor Tauren have an awesome badass Totem as heritage cloak. HM have two smaller ones.
Kalimdor Tauren have much better customization.
I’d say go normal Tauren, but again, HM are decent as well. There’s really no wrong choice here.
As others explained, there isn’t a lot of difference here. Tauren Shamans are a bit more organised, as the Earthen Ring was originally established by a Tauren, Muln Earthfury. This is a bit headcanon, but that might mean that Tauren Shamans are more in contact with other Horde races with similar beliefs, and maybe even Alliance races. There is definitely proof that the Tauren and Orcs studied Shamanism together, or at least connected well because of it.
Highmountain Shamans are very similar I assume, although they studied Shamanism more by themself. You can argue that this changed recently because they joined the Horde, but the current Shamans are trained by HM Tauren only.
Which one is better… you can not really answer that tbh. Both are very much the same. One last difference I’d argue, although again, it’s a bit headcanonish, is that the HMT are more practical, much like the Taunka in that regard, and they use their Shamans for practical reasons as well. The Rivermane are very dependent on the river, because of their history with fishing and agriculture, so one might claim that they are more interested in Water because of that.
Dark iron shamans have good totems.
But this is about the Horde. I would recommend High Mountain Tauren’s for their look and their higher rez textures on totems. They also seem to fit better with the shaman role, as the normal Tauren’s seem more of a generalized cast.
If I could get past my dislike of the Horde faction lore wise… I’d have made a HM tauren instead of a dranei shaman.
This would be my advice as well. The emphasis they put on professions is the main thing culturally that separates the HM and regular Tauren.
Highmountain Tauren have a large cultural link to Mining and Blacksmithing through the Ironhorn, whereas Regular Tauren favour living in complete harmony with nature and have hunting rituals making professions like Herbalism, Skinning and Leatherworking better fits.
The good thing about Tauren is you can’t really go wrong - Both kinds are awesome. 
In regards to your first part, I’m not sure it is headcanon. Excepting Thrall (via Drek) I’m pretty sure it was stated somewhere in Vanilla that it was through the alliance with the Tauren that Shamanism proper was re-energized amongst the Orcs and many of their former shaman properly reacquainted themselves with the “old ways”. Prior to the third war shaman were not really a thing in the Horde due to demonic corruption and its only after the Horde are aligned with tauren in WC3 you start to see orcish shaman and far seers reappearing. I’m not saying Tauren taught them how to do it, but I’m wagering they had a big hand in bringing them back to it, and reminding them of the practice. I’ll see if I can find a source.
Also: you see a reasonable number of situations in game where tauren are senior shaman compared to orcs. A good example is in borean tundra at bog’gorok where the orc asks you to help recover the body of her mentor who is a tauren.
So that’s something, classic tauren at least have this potential angle of being the “experienced” or wizened shaman compared to orcs at least (obviously not All orcs, but orcs who aren’t from draenor AU who clung to shamanism even through the second war would be extremely rare and essentially restricted to frostwolves in exile, other clans would either have had to relearn it or would have been introduced to shamanism afresh after the second war, showing how for many orc shaman, them being elder shaman of a continual period with no breaks/schisms is probably quite rare when compared with Tauren) . Trolls we can assume had theirs separate of tauren influence prior to joining because witch doctors have always been a troll thing.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.