Maelstrom weapons makes warstomp redundant?Follow

While I'm waiting for my main to build up some blue xp I've gone back to level up my shaman alt (a tauren)...

As far as I could tell the main argument for going tauren as opposed to orc's bloodfury was the utility of the ol' warstomp + heal trick.

But now when we have 5/5 maelstrom weapons proc we can get our instant heals, and we have wind-shock as a low mana spell interrupt, so is warstomp as important as it used to be?

Would an orc's bloodfury and +axes be more useful in our post-3.0 world, or does warstomp still have a place?

I am happy to reroll orc if need be.

(from a levelling/questing perspective)

Warstomp can also serve as an extra interrupt offensively, and let's not forget that it's an AoE stun. In the bite/scratch world of PvP, Warstomp can make a huge difference and will always have a place.

If we're talking strictly PvE, nothing's changed. Orc has always been technically better for Enhancement as long as you're running around with axes and using Bloodfury, 3.0 had nothing to do with that.

Each race has some nice perks for shaman, but in the end there is really very little difference in performance between them, so I would recommend picking whichever you think looks cooler, or whichever has the best starting zone, whatever, since the differences are pretty minimal.

Stomp and stam on tauren
Haste on troll
axe expertise, bloodfury, and reduced stuns on orc
holy school heal for inturrupt baiting, +hit aura on Draenai.

Also, remember from a questing perspective, you wont have maelstrom weapon until your 50's.

Really, play what you like, racials aren't a big deal, but on the margins it comes down to:

PvP: Tauren
PvE dps: Orc
PvE healing: Troll

Alliance doesn't have these issues, of course. And they probably envy Horde on how easy it is to choose a pally race.