Hey, I was just wondering if anyone could tell me the major difference to look at when comparing a Tauren Druid to a Night Elf Druid?

Pretty much, I'm just wondering what sets the two apart, if there is such a thing.

Let me know what you guys/gals think.

Thanks.

Tauren

War Stomp - active
Activate to stun opponents within 5 yards - lasts 2 sec - 2 min cooldown

Endurance - passive
Max Health increased by 5%

Cultivation - passive
15 skill bonus to Herbalism

Nature Resistance - passive
All Tauren get +10 Nature Resistance



Night Elves

Shadowmeld - active
Activate while immobile and out of combat to enter stealth mode - lasts until canceled - no cooldown

Quickness - passive
Dodge chance increased by 1%

Wisp Spirit - passive
Become a wisp when dead with movement speed increase of 50% (25% faster than normal ghost)

Nature Resistance - passive
All Night Elves get +10 Nature Resistance[U]



But the really important stuff is:

cat mounts > lizards
NE feral cat > Tauren feral cat
Tauren feral bear > NE feral bear

Night Elves for teh win, 2-1

But the really important stuff is:

cat mounts > lizards
NE feral cat > Tauren feral cat
Tauren feral bear > NE feral bear

Night Elves for teh win, 2-1
First off, Lizards rule
I agree with the cat statement
Yes, our bear does rule
but you're forgetting so much

Tauren cowness > Night Elf cowness
Thunder Bluff > Teldrassil
Horns > Pointy Ears
Ooga-Chaka > Disco Mania
Not purple > Purple
+2 coolness for tauren > -2 coolness for NE since there's so freaking many

so clearly, it is 8-1, Tauren rule, leave now!

Mooooo!

But Night Elf Chicks are ten times hotter than female cows, so 11-8 for us!

Maybe but Tauren women have big udders with 4 nipples each vs one each on scawny NE women. 8 nipples vs 2 moves Tauren up to 16 vs 13!

I thought Shadowmeld had a cooldown - 10s?

I've also heard that a part of Shadowmeld is that NE Druids and Rogues have one higher level of effective stealthing. This bonus may make it worth NE Druids not having to buy the increased stealth talent, which I believe many 60's (in the know) buy 1 rank of to increase their stealth level to 61.

<3Chloee

Actually Stormhaven, you are correct. I cut and pasted from Blizzard's site, so they apparently made an error.

And Archnawan, you can have those saggy 8-nippled udders!

The main difference between Night Elves and Taurens is the population. Seems that people want to play a "pretty" or "sexy" race over a cow. Sad because Horde areas are far less populated and much easier to hunt in. Alliance characters tend to travel in packs rather than venture out alone, where you find a lot more Horde working their way solo through more dangerous territory.

You might not want to play Horde if you want to play on a PvP server. :)

There's not that much difference, except for racial traits.

Tauren have more HP, but Night Elves are harder to hit.

Tauren have an extra stun, but Night Elves have an extra stealth.

Night Elf women are very attractive, but the men look like Rodeo Clowns.

Tauren males looks awesome, but the females look....like cows with human breasts.

They all look awesome in full Wildheart though. :)

IMO the key chocie is between shadowmeld and warstomp. The rest is just fluff.

For me the decision was a guild one. I was set on playing a dru or shaman, depending on what side we went. Majority wanted alliance, so obviously I couldnt be a sham ><

I would say quite confidently that tauren is > NE, just because of warstomp. Shadowmeld is pretty useless. The only time I use it is if I just want to sit and eat+drink without getting attacked. Otherwise I use cat for stealth.

same with me aitrus, I'm for Tauren all the way, they're an awesome and formidable looking race... but my guild went alliance at launch!!!!

We do have a horde alt guild though

I went alliance with my friends but I will say this much - since the Horde are so woefully outnumbered, their group tactics in PVP are much better than Alliance. Most of the Alliance "raids" I've seen on Garona involve getting a crapload of people and charging. The Horde will come in and try to use terrain, NPCs, and other tactics to try and whittle down the mob of Alliance that usually shows up.

I remember one Horde raid I was watching in Southshore, the Horde had one level 60 warrior, the Alliance already had 4+ level 58's and they were all /shouting for more, just in case that big bad level 60 killed them all. When the Horde finally started buckling under the sheer weight of the "horde" of Alliance players, they retreated back to Tauren Mill, and to show how much Alliance people pay attention, they all waded right into the Deathguards.

Was such a proud day... =/

As a tauren druid with warstomp I still feel my number of stuns is barely adequate so warstomp is a big big plus for me. Still cooldown is 2 mins so its a once a fight thing, but if your fighting a healer and he dips a little to low in health it may mean the difference between a win and another 5 minutes of
fighting.

As far as shadowmeld, for a warrior or a mage I would say it's a damn fine racial talent. For a druid I would call it next to useless.

And dammit I forgot that Tauren women had human breast. No udders for me! How tragic....

On illidan we get horde zerging all the time, so its pretty much the opposite of what everyone else sees. I think its because before the server names were officially released, a handful of names leaked out, and the beta hardcore pvpers agreed that archimonde and illidan would be the 2 main pvp servers.

Most of the noobz go alliance because they look prettier, whereas hardcore pvpers will go horde to get a better challenge and to stomp on all the alliance zerglings.

But since Illidan was one of the 2 main pvp servers known prior to launch, we got a disproportionate amount of "hardcore" players, and I'm sure the queues early on convinced many alliance zerg-noobz to move elsewhere, leaving us with more horde than alliance.

Warstomp is a damn good ability, possibly the best racial imo.

Horde players do definately work better as a team when it comes to PvP, i'm sure it will remain this way until the alliance has been spanked 30 or 40 times in battlegrounds where it actually matters who wins.

Yea Atrius, I hear Team Ice owns the Illidian server. Former Povar guildmates of mine.

The three servers the hardcore guilds decided to flock to were Archimonde, Illidian, and Stormreaver. Our guild didn't really know this until we were already here, so it was a pleasant suprise we landed in a middle of a huge warzone.

Stormreaver is really balanced. We have major hardcore PvP guilds on both sides, and almost the entire Sullon Zek population flocked to this server it seems.

Horde players do definately work better as a team when it comes to PvP, i'm sure it will remain this way until the alliance has been spanked 30 or 40 times in battlegrounds where it actually matters who wins.

It was this way on the NWN server I played too. The side associated with the dark and evil drew the smaller number of hardcore disciplined pvpers. Even though I knew this and suspected it would be true in WOW, im systemically incapable of playing "evil" characters. Dunno why really, I've had a tauren up on my character screen countless times but couldnt go through with it. Go figure.

So when I do team pvp I'm constantly listening to lectures from the good ubers about the need to be organized play better as a team etc etc. Then they get mad and threaten to go evil. Unfortunately they never do and so I have to get beaten and listen to them rage and then whine ad nauseum.

Good just seems to attract part time new people. It'll be interesting to see if this continues to play out in WOW.

Alliance characters tend to travel in packs rather than venture out alone, where you find a lot more Horde working their way solo through more dangerous territory.


Hah, that comment reminded me of this video, it's entertaining to watch, especially if you have leveled on a PvP server.

http://users.westco.net/jesse/notgonnagetus.wmv

I play on Stormreaver Boudicca and I can definately attest to that. I see alot of organized group PvP going on constantly; we also have organized 5v5 competitions between Alliance and Horde in the STV arena. I went to play briefly on another server with some friends and was very much surprised at the difference in average PvP skill the players there had.

I played a NE druid in beta and now I have a 53 Tauren druid. I feel that the Tauren makes a much much better druid than the NE. Shadowmed is only eye candy for those rare times that you may use it to eat or drink. Warstomp can actually save you or the group which makes it so much more useful than Shadowmeld. If I want to go stealth, I can just hit cat form. If you are NE there is nothing you could do to have a Warstomp equivalent.

I really like the "feel" of the Nightelves and their newbie/lowbie areas. However that really doesn't matter as you level up and get out of those areas.

Also on my server, Dragonblight (PvE), the Alliance outnumbers us. I personally estimate 3:1 from my observations, but the census says something like more like 4:1. It is pretty obvious, though, when the Alliance tries to rape Tarren Mill.

I too would say that the Horde, on average, seem to be more skilled than the average Alliance player. During the TM and SS raids we are always outnumbered but have little to no problem pushing them out of TM and back to SS. In my personal opinion I would say more of the bnet kiddos play Alliance and they don't seem to have that teamwork thing down. Broad generalizations, I know, but for the average Alliance person this is what I think.

i have played both a tauren druid and NE... i slightly prefer tauren, but shadowmeld isn't as useless as people say....

it's been officially stated that it gives a bonus to cat form prowling, and i've read that the bonus is equivalent to 3 levels of improved prowl... that may be a stretch, but it definately is a noticable difference...

when prowling around with my tauren that has no points in imp-prowl, even leveled mobs notice me at a fairly distant range if i'm not directly behind them.... on my NE, there is a noticable difference.... even leveled mobs seem to notice me about as well as something 2 or 3 levels below me would

now warstomp is really awesome... it's a 2 second stun, which is the same as the casting time of regrowth, so if you're in a bit of a pickle, you can toss a warstomp and immediately regrowth without any interuption..... i use it allllllll the time when soloing.... it makes it so that taking on multiple targets at a time is barely even an issue, as i can always get off at least one regrowth, no prob

basically, taurens seem well suited for bear form... higher HP and warstomp giving even more survivability... while NE seem to make better cats.... mainly just due to shadowmeld's bonus to prowl....

edit: i will say that i vastly prefer 5% more hp over the 1% dodge bonus

I play on stormreaver, 52 Tauren druid, Personally, the Tauren seems to be the best class to play a druid as. I started wow thinking of how homosexual Halflings were, and how Manly tauren were... Hope we get that huge lug they got in W3, that would be tight.

I have noticed, when soloing, that The alliance always gank by: 1. Having more than one person with them, or 2. Having some lvl 60 rogue following them around to assure a win.
Took down at 57 NE hunter in WP today, wasn't a big deal, I was only 6 lvls below him at the time :lmao:

PS. Chloee, hope you are not in nightmare inc, or KAOS. I might have to gank you.

Its pretty much known that alliance out-number horde on most servers. This means horde have to solo alot more in contested area. They learn how to run, how to hide, how to turn the slightest little mistake into a gigantic win. While many alliance are simply used to having many friends around. Im tauren, and sure i get ganked by mobs of alliance outside the STV arena. I cant remember the last time an alliance player killed me 1v1 in open PvP without being 30+ lvls higher than me, one of the perks of being a druid "the class best suited for running away" i guess.

On a slightely funnier note, me and my cousin (43 shaman at the time) were questing down in STV (i was lvl41). All of a sudden a lvl43 night elf druid and lvl54 human warrior showed up. At first me and my cousin were kinda concerned, we really werent looking for any PvP action, so once the warrior started engaging mobs, we were quite happy. We move out of sight then continue to quest, when all of a sudden im being hit by moonfires... My cousin rushes out and attacks the druid which then makes the warrior attack him. Right now im thinking "we are soooo dead"... Thankfully my cousin sticks to the druid taking him out of the fight asap. The druid goes travel and runs, i go travel and chase him down. Eventually he switches out of travel to reju himself, this leaves me enough time to go caster and NS + root him, then back to travel. He shifts to escape roots but im allready close enough to him to jump back into caster and throw a few moonfires at him. Eventually the DoT kills him and its back to travel to see how my cousin came out. I expected to see him very much dead lol, after all the warrior was like +11 lvls higher than him. But to my surprise when i got back the warrior was trying in vain to run away, suffering from the effects of frost shock. Its kinda sad seeing someone +11 lvls trying as hard as they can to run away... My cousin was quite literally playing with him, frost shocking him and kiting around him laughing and dancing. Eventually he just killed the warrior. Was a pretty good day that day.

So basicly two differences:

In feral: Tauren have a 5% HP advantage in Bear, NE have a +1 to stealth lv, dodge and quickness for a better Cat.

Warstomp gives one stun to prevent casting in combat but Shadowstep gives you a chance to med/eat/drink during down time with a little less chance to agro. The NE racial dodge helps with channeling also. So you can disrupt one cast vs channel and recover more peacefully.

For those that don't see the the advantage for shadowstep I use it a lot on both my Druid and my Priest. It isn't just for downtime but if you just finished a battle with a mob 2 levels higher than you in an area with roamers, it is a lot better to Shadowmeld while you heal back up than take the chance on that roamer coming by while you are at 20% mana/health.

The other place it comes in handy is when you rez, hit it till you can verify the area is safe. There seems to be a second or so lag in agro so if you rez and then meld immediatly you are less likely to agro the mob you didn't see waiting.

The last use for it is when exploring it is a cheap invisibility to get past roaming mobs. Just meld till they go past then continue. Also if you have a person pulling mobs of questionable skill, melding during the pull could be a lifesaver. If they bring 5 mobs back to the party there is no way to shake agro in an instance. If you stay melded and the party is chewed to pieces, you can rez the priest/pally and reduce downtime (yes I know, logic can seem cowardly that is why we call them tanks and fodder..). I have found several things you can do while melded such as cast Cat and Prowl or gate that make it worth considering.

FYI that Warstomp is not available to tauren in bear form. Also the Horde (excepting the Undead) are not "evil" per se, just "savage" and that itself is highly subjective. Basically both sides are blinded by prejudice and the "Hatfields and McCoy's" Syndrome. I'm not sure if the racial passives are still available in shifted forms or not, I never really bothered to check. If someone can let me know how much bear form is supposed to buff, I can confirm tonight if the passive HP boost for tauren carries over or not.

I will say this, on Scarlet Crusade I am amazed whenever I see another tauren druid in Moonglade whereas night elf druids are commonly seen by me. I know one other tauren druid (in my guild) and have only seen one other tauren druid ever (and that was in Moonglade).

The difference that shadowmeld gives to stealth is negligible, the only way prowl would be useful in actual pvp or against similar level mobs is with improved prowl, with or without the shadowmeld bonus. The stat bonuses and racial skill that taurens have makes them far superior to a night elf druid. Wildheart set looks completely awful on a tauren though.

Also the Horde (excepting the Undead) are not "evil" per se, just "savage" and that itself is highly subjective).

Being a relatively experienced gamer, of course I agree with you. I used "evil" for lack of a better word...

But I don't think inexperienced gamers grasp this distinction. Trolls, undead there very presence suggests....?

So, unsure of themselves they pick what they percieve to be the good side initially and good becomes overloaded with new, inexperienced players.

I think that a lot of hard playing pvp folks want to avoid the n00b contingent as much as possible and just get on with the serious business of gaming, so they make a conscious choice to take the side that is most free of it.

Having just moved into Araathi/Hillsbraad etc. I can testify that horde are merciless pvpers for the most part. Thats why i plan to stay in the zone. Somewhere in the process of dying and dying again I hope to improve and at least die a little less.

My enemy is my best teacher. :)