For the Tauren!

I have to admit straight off that I have never really liked the Tauren model. Three fingers and a misplaced tail don't do much for me. On top of that I didn't care for Taurens being allowed to become paladins either. Now that we have that straight I'll let you know what inspired me for this particular set.

I ran into a Tauren pally in Orgrimmar last night. He must be hearth bound at the same Inn as myself since I see him quite a lot. And frankly he makes me green with envy. He has Invincible. I can't tell you how badly I want that mount, but we won't go there. So every now and then I take a moment to check out what he's wearing. He actually has several sets of role playing gear. Last night he was wearing a mix 'n' match set of whatever that looked very cool and very intimidating. And frankly, Tauren or not it wasn't half bad. So I took the challenge and I embarked on a quest to find a set of plate gear that looked good on a Tauren female.

I usually start the shoulder but this time I started with the chest. That chest is the most important piece on a female Tauren. It has to be feminine without making her look deformed. Trust me, some of those chest pieces do NOT look good. The Breastplate of Blade Turning was perfect. Not only does it have lovely smooth lines it doesn't distort. Some of the chest pieces that were full coverage made the Tauren female look as though she had no neck. Ick.

I continued the "skip the shoulders" trend and went to the legs next. The legs had to match color wise and transition smoothly at the waist. I didn't look very long. And frankly once I found Valorous Aegis Greaves I quit looking. I usually obsessively compulsively look at every single pair of legs to be sure I had the right ones but I loved the look. There must be something wrong with me. I HATE plate dresses but the feel that I wanted for this set was starting to evolve. I decided to finish the design with a healer in mind.

The shoulders had be something medium. The large one were HUGE and made her head disappear and the small ones seemed to stick out at funny angles or were just lost to the rest of her armor. There were quite a few decent bronze pairs but I chose a pewter winged look instead. I love the smooth profile and feather details of the Chilled Shoulderplates. They also seemed to lend the set a distinctive custom feel rather than a matchy matchy set feel.

The Belt of Regret and Gauntlets of Serene Blessing pulled it all together. The belt had that extra little touch of gray blue that pulled the shoulders in and the full gloves matched the legs (or skirt!) perfectly. The gloves needed to be fuller. The half gloves or the "skin tight" gloves just didn't feel right on a Tauren model.

Since I decided to design her with a healer in mind instead of a tank, I chose a hammer for the weapon. And a very fitting hammer it is! It's extremely unique, very lovely, matches the color scheme and is dropped off Arthas in Heroic 25M ICC, just like Invincible. I'm going to be keeping my fingers and my eyes crossed farming that thing. "Please drop the mount, please drop the mount, please drop the..." you get the idea. The (H) Royal Scepter of Terenas II even has the right shade of glowy. Make sure it's heroic, the regular has a slightly color.

The shield and cloak are both fairly common graphics. I listed the Drape of Fiery Dreams because it's a random BoE blue drop. There are quite a few other cloaks with the same graphic though, such as the Cape of the Brotherhood from heroic Deadmines. The shield, Observer's Shield, is a simple boss drop. It drops in Dire Maul or Mana Tombs or is a simple level 69 green.

And lastly, you may have noticed, I'm not a big fan of helms. I love the option to turn off the helm graphic. There was one particular helm back in Vanilla that I rather liked. I thought it might be a fitting match for this set. It would fit and frame the face without covering it. The particulat helm I was thinking of is no longer in game. Most of the helms sharing that graphic are actually mail not plate. So it took a bit of extra searching to find the Glorious Headdress

The only drawback with this set is that the legs are Paladin only. However, I chose not to sweat that detail since I was thinking healer. I mean when's the last time you saw a DK holding a shield and casting Holy Light on someone? For that reason I won't even be taking the time to find a possible two hander for the set at this time. Check back in a few days. I'll be doing this set on another race to see how it compares. At which point I'll find boots,(they didn't seem to show up under a Tauren's dress at all!) a possible alternate set of legs available to all classes and of course the optional two hand weapon.

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Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Chilled Shoulderplates	H Stop the Plague A There‘s Something Going On In Those Caves
Chest	Breastplate of Blade Turning	Random Rare Drop
Belt	Belt of Regret	Neutral Quest Hazard Disposal
Legs	Valorous Aegis Greaves	PALADIN Only - Boss Drop or Token
Hands	Gauntlets of Serene Blessing	Justice Points
Back	Drape of Fiery Dreams	Random Rare Drop
Main Hand	(H) Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Boss Drop Heroic ICC 25
Shield	Observer's Shield	Boss Drop - Dire Mail
Helm	Glorious Headdress	Random Green

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