The tauren need a power-up

Lore Story Forum
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I know I’ve been advocating for night elves here, but I really think tauren are just currently very weak compared to any of the other races.

Sometime back, I was thinking they could use a counterpart to Elune, An’she, but I feel they do not have a common cultural connect to An’she as the druids do.

I remembered a scene back in Warcraft 3 where Cairne Bloodhoof- the warrior chieftain- channeled the Earth Mother and collapsed a ravine on incoming centaur:

Most people don’t recall this cutscene, but it clearly shows the power that tauren can wield by the entity the Earth Mother. All tauren revere the Earth Mother unlike An’she who gets more attention from druids, like Musha.

Cairne was no shaman, but all tauren have relations to the Earth and the Earth Mother. A shaman ability, reincarnation, also comes from the tauren chieftain. The tauren, even non-shaman, and especially the Chieftains, should be able to channel this more frequently and with more power like Cairne did. I don’t really like Baine, but I see him as being too weak and too cow-like, and maybe that can be fixed by elevating his power level to match that of Cairne.

The nature of the Earth Mother is somewhat a mystery- it is unclear if it is the eternal earth spirit or the titan Azeroth, and either would work, but I would prefer the earth element, because of its shamanic themes and the tauren would use more Earth powers which there is a dearth of in this setting. The earth element is also generally calmer and patient until provoked, something reminiscent of the tauren themselves.

Tldr, empower the tauren with their ties to the Earth Mother, to put them on par with other races, give them their own Earth mother mystery deity, and return them to their wc3 roots.

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I don’t really think they need a font of power. Blizzard should write them as rediscovering their connection to the earth mother and have them tap into it for a “power boost”.

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I think that’s essentially the same thing in a way. Tauren have apparently always had this power. Blizz just portrays them as too weak and passive in WoW, despite their huge size. But Cairne clearly demonstrated otherwise. I feel that bridging their connect to the Earth mother would also make them more active as a race.

Edit: to put an example, tauren since Baine have always been shown to be afraid of Garrosh’s wrath or meek in front of Sylvanas. In other instances, they are too weak to stand up to the Alliance, having to build big wooden gates to keep them out.
Giving them a power boost through the Earth Mother would allow them to stand up to both Horde and Alliance threats.

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Eh, does every race need some sort of powerful MacGuffin to use as a power source though? I would argue that Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs, Worgen, Undead and the Tauren are able to get on just fine without one.

Sure you could argue that some of these races have members who can draw their power from the ‘light’ or ‘the elements’ but is that really all that different from what Tauren are already doing?

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Dwarves, gnomes, orcs and undead make use of their own special technology to mow down threats. Undead and gnomes also have magic.
Tauren as a race are considerably weaker in these respects, and they need to be put on par with them. Their inherent connection to the Earth Mother is a great way to resolve this without introducing some new MacGuffin.

Tauren have also always had this. Cairne demonstrates it. I’m asking that it be portrayed once again. Not introduce a new power.

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Tauren don’t deserve any powers as long as someone like Baine is their leader. They are simps for the alliance and betrayed the horde at every turn. I’m glad Blizzard writes them as powerless. Very well deserved of fate.

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I know I’m wasting my time but- The tauren are more than just Baine. They have more interests than being friendly with the Alliance.
They have their own world views to enforce and their own path to make in the world, Horde, Alliance or otherwise. I’d like to see them work towards that.

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Not that it would stop Blizzard if they really wanted to, but I feel it’d be hard to take seriously at this point, after neglecting it for so long. There’d be this eternal “why didn’t this happen sooner?” aspect that can’t be fixed without retconning it.

Kinda feels like it’d make more sense for the story to outright say their religion is built on a lie or a misunderstanding.

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Then let there be a gradual “awakening” of it.

In Cata/MoP, tauren got paladins because of Aponi rediscovering An’she. They can have a questline with Baine or another character (maybe a spiritwalker) marching to end the quillboar threat. On the way, their fallen ancestors gather and remind them of their ties to the Earth and how those ties helped Cairne before.

As the quillboar push back, said character can call on the Earth to seal the caverns and keep the quillboar inside once and for all. The Earth Mother responds and the entrance is sealed permanently.

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I usually read a thread and hope some one has already expressed my opinion, while stating it more diplomatically. But no one has.

No. They do not need more power. The Tauren are mighty.

Baine could have torn Sylvanas into banshee splinters in Warcrimes. Lasan is just there. Magatha, too. They have the power. And I respect it.

If they need anything, it is merely showtime and a good cause. It is unfortunate the Tauren usually use their might to set the Horde in order. The writers seem to set the Tauren against the Horde at every turn. Usually rightfully so. But if the Horde is the eternal enemy of the Horde… that sucks for all involved.

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Sylvanas just needs to cast her banshee scream and Baine would turn into dead meat. All he has is brute strength and absolute zero magical prowess.

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Call me a fantastical dreamer… but I can see the makings of a connection between the Baine we saw at the End Time and now. Before, it seemed odd that he was swimming in lava with Black Dragon buddies. But as time goes on, and if he marries into the Highmountain family, and that Black Dragon connection is expanded…

What am I thinkin?

Just another Black Dragon for Anduin to master. Baine is already cutting off his body parts and sending then to Anduin. Why should that lead anywhere, other than bowing to some proxy child-example the writing team wished to foist upon us.

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I agree with the sentiment in the OP, and I kind of see where it comes from.

The thing with the Tauren is that they’re supposed to be massive. Huge. Way stronger than an orc, a human, or whatever playable character race. But, for whatever reason, Blizzard has been extremely loathe to depict differences in the physical capacity between races. The Horde should have a “strength advantage” given the physical characteristics of several of their races, but Blizzard doesn’t want to go that way, so, fine. The Orcs have shamanism, are adept with certain kinds of magic, and have increasingly become industrially and technologically adept as well. The Trolls have leaned into more voodoo and the powerful beings they have unique connections with.

The problem is that if you’re not going to let the Tauren be living bulldozers, and forget other things that make them special (as per the OP’s video clip), then they really have nothing else to fall back on, and sort of have this limp flopping effect on the plot because they have no power. If Blizzard isn’t going to be okay depicting them as far stronger and more durable than anyone else, then maybe they do need to reintroduce a power of sorts like this.

The Horde is already kind of short on powerful, impactful characters as-is, and the Tauren are even less impactful than the other Horde races as a whole. If they need this kind of Earth Mother power to make a comeback, I say go for it.

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I will admit, I do not play a Tauren. I can not even. But as much as I see Baine as garbage… the alternatives are even less appealing.

Even if Baine is a weak nut of his own accord… I would rather that, than he becomes Garrosh or Sylvanas, relegated to servitude of some power source.

His strength seems to be within himself, coupled with the strength of his buddies, who seek his existence as a boon. May he use that goodwill for the Horde.

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At one point, I would have agreed with you.

But whether we like it or not, magic, natural or arcane, has become an important factor in the setting. Magic decides who lives and dies. For all their brute physical strength, the tauren will always lag behind other races with engineering or magical gifts.

We see this already with their defense of Mulgore, with their attacks by the quillboar, with their cowering in fear of Garrosh and Sylvanas. If magic and technology must dictate the terms of the setting, put the tauren on par with other races. Tauren physical strength need not be overlooked- it will just be one of many aspects of their connection to the Earth.

I also don’t get the idea behind “new power source”- tauren have always had a relation to the Earth Mother. Every tauren respects and reveres her. Turn that connection into something useful, because it is already there.

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I think that’s because Tauren lore has been ignored for years and barely explored to the point they’re mostly a background race.
However I do like your idea of Taurens having more conexion with the elements and the earth mother in general giving then access to nature powers even without being shamans or druids but I want to add that their sun deity could be a nice counterpart with Elune as it is at the Shinto religion

Also Kudos for thinking in the Taurens! Not many people thinks of then nowadays thanks to that deporable excuse of a character called Baine

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I initially thought of the sun deity, like having both An’she and Musha be eternal ones, but I’m worried it would steal away from existing tauren themes, in particular their connection to the Earth Mother, which hasn’t been reinforced well enough.

I also don’t like the idea of making them “celestial” when they can get the same power from an entity they already revere and are inherently connected to. It’s the same reason I don’t like that balance druids went away from nature magic to sun and moon magic… I feel the themes clash a lot and don’t really make sense.

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I agree. I think the Horde playerbase is afraid that giving the Tauren power is tantamount to giving the Alliance more power. I leave it to you to consider if that’s reasonable or not.

Tbqafh, the Wolf Spirit of Terrokar needs to not only not be Goldrinn, he needs to be a First One.

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To be honest, I don’t know how to fix Baine. Having him do a 180 would just be Jaina or Rexxar level ooc. And the factions aren’t currently in war so I don’t want to bring up that scenario either.
I would put him in a situation where he has to choose between saving say… Anduin/Jaina in the Maw and the spirits of Tauren who died. Baine chooses the tauren souls, Anduin/Jaina find out about this and their relationship fractures, and Baine reminds the player that his people always come first, and those who cannot understand that choice are no friends of his.

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On the one hand, it’s setting up a character who is intended to be Horde (tho, to be clear, Baine is not Horde) to be in the wrong by betraying his allies. A big problem that I have with Blizzard is that the Alliance rarely instigates and when they do, it’s excused away. When the Horde instigates with reasons such as you’ve suggested, it’s still painted as wrong.

On the other hand, Baine being wrong would be fresh and new for once.

I’d rather Baine just die and we get a new Tauren leader who doesn’t suck. They could be a shaman of the earthmother, or a sunwalker of anshe.

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