Happy Patch Day!

So it's been a month. Yeah.

Last Poll: Death Knights. Yay or Nay?
Yay! (44%)
Nay! (22%)
Meh, don't care. (33%)

I wasn't terribly fond of DK's either, and I'm still not enthused about them, but I will say they have undeniably the coolest starting area in the history of EVER.

**Edit**
There will be a new poll up when I can get it to work. For some reason, Blogger won't let me change my layout right now. Very weird.

**Edit^2**
So Blogspot ate some of my blog and I had no idea. Fixed.

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So as a side note, I was at Blizzcon this past weekend. If you saw the crazy girl with the "I <3 Eyonix" sign, well, that was me. I'll have a more detailed update on Blizzcon probably tomorrow. But for today, I'd like to talk about the new patch.

So while I'm relatively upset that I was not specced Retribution for raiding for patch day (and, indeed, have been Protection for a few weeks now due to our regular Prot Pally being MIA), it was nice that tanking was actually fun again. Especially when I'm running around pulling threat off the T6 warrior. There's something incredibly satisfying about that. I'm a lot more excited, however, to get a chance to raid as Retribution with all the new changes. I greatly wish I could do so tomorrow, but with our guild looking at Illidan and me being one of the few with tank gear AND FR gear... well, I'm not really going to get the chance.

A guildmate has already leveled his Inscription up to about 300 (or at least close to that before I logged off), and my own level 15 Rogue alt already has 90-some Inscription herself. I'm liking the flow of the new profession. Even as you level up through it, old herbs and low level things are still useful to you. I think that's kinda cool.

After our raid this evening, a group of us decided to pay good old Onyxia a visit, so those of us who never raided pre-TBC could get the achievement. It was fun tanking her - I'd personally never seen the encounter (since I never hit 60 before TBC), so it was really cool. The 20g reward just for killing her was nice too.

Too bad the Pally T2 didn't drop. I would've liked to say I had some of it. =P Though I'm sure we'll go and kill her for loot weekly now... It takes all of ten minutes. Tomorrow, we plan on getting the Leeeeeeeroooooy! Achievement. Should be fun. =D

Admittedly, I was very apprehensive about how we'd operate tonight with the new patch. Everyone was scrambling at raid time to put together their talents, figure out their new rotations, and generally organize themselves. I thought the Holy Paladins would trip up on their healing since they operate so differently now. I found myself giving advice on how to use Beacon of Light, simply due to the fact I've been more informed of the patch notes and changes than my guildies have been (I never realized how much more dedicated a fan I am to this game than the typical player is). It was kind of nice being a go-to person for information tonight; possibly because it's all too often that I'm just "that girl who plays" and not really considered an informed or important figure. Not being an officer in the new guild has a lot to do with that, though I suppose if our usual pally tank keeps being MIA, I may find myself upgraded sooner rather than later.

While I'm sad we didn't down Council legitimately (I.E. before the 30% nerf and the ridiculous DPS people are putting out now), it was rather awe-inspiring to just plow through BT while barely batting an eye. It took us 49 seconds to down Shade of Akama - I only had two adds on me in the center by the time they moved in on him. I think we only got three people killed on Gorefiend, simply from them getting the debuff (and the last guy's timer was nowhere near up by the time Gorefiend hit the ground).

This patch and the upcoming expansion are amazing leaps and bounds for the game, especially for Paladins. If you've lost interest in your class, Patch 3.0 brings a ton of new stuff to the table that makes you excited about the game again. And really, as a devoted fan, I could hardly ask for more.

Wrath of the Lich King - The New Holy

Hi guys! Missed me? Before I get into this with my usual grovelling about how I'm always late *coughs* I just want to say thank you to the people who do stick around, and even more so to those who comment. You guys are what make me come back to write more, and I really need the inspiration!

Also, if anyone is going to Blizzcon in October (for those lucky people who got tickets), I will be there if you'd like to discuss anything or just hang out and be merry. Look for a short haired, glasses wearing, petite girl with the name Prettyboi on her badge. I'll probably be accompanied by a guildmate of mine, possibly another if he manages to get a ticket from the opt-in. *crossing my fingers for you, Darn!*

Also, the last poll I posted was the preference of people on Servers. The final response was 25% liked PvP servers, 50% like PvE, and 25% liked both. There were small numbers this time around on the actual people who voted, so all I can conclude is that there are more people who play on PvE servers than PvP servers who read my blog. Interesting, considering I only play on a PvP server.

With that out of the way, let me jump into the WotLK stuff (finally!).

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I don't pretend to know anything about Holy, really. It is, admittedly, my weakest spec, and people who outgear Kara DIE when I'm a healer (partially because my gear sucks so bad, but mostly because I'm just that terrible). About the only time I've done well as a healer is as a 2v2 Arena healer with an MS Warrior partner. But being good at Holy is not something that has ever really interested me, since *most* of the time, a Holy Pally gets to hit one to three buttons repeatedly and very few people ever thank the healers. Why would I subjugate myself to a thankless, boring role? (Note: Take my opinion with a grain of salt, please! I mean no offense to any healers, I personally admire you guys for sticking with it - it's clearly something I could never do.)

Anyway, I am reasonably intrigued with some of the direction they are taking with the Holy spec in particular with the upcoming expansion. However, certain aspects of what they tweaked just don't sound right to me. First off, we'll start with the knowledge of the spec I DO have.

When I frequent the WoW forums, there's a list of things that I hear Holy Paladins complain about. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these:

-Holy Shock is more or less a joke, and the cooldown prevents us from being able to heal on the run like every other healer can
-Lack of HoTs is debilitating
-No AOE heal, on top of lack of HoTs and a weak instant cast make us the least versatile healer
-We rely on downranking for mana conservation, rather than having spells that actually support mana conservation or an active way to regenerate mana (Seal/Judgement of Wisdom requires melee, something a healer should never be doing)

Now, these are some of the fixes seen so far to alleviate these issues:
-Holy Shock's damage ratio has been adjusted multiple times, its cooldown has been lowered. In addition, it's usefulness has increased from being an unreliable clutch heal to a supplemental heal that assists Holy Light.
-We have an AOE HoT as our 51 point talent.
-If specc'd into Retribution, our critical heals also provide a HoT
-We have an Evocation-like ability now.
-We have a shield somewhat similar to Power Word: Shield, only not as strong

Now there's a few problems with these fixes. First off, while we gained one new spell to alleviate some of the problems we have (Beacon of Light), it's very situational and very expensive to cast. Since it turns a specific target into the source of the healing, you have to make sure it's someone who isn't going anywhere and someone who will be affecting the most amount of people to make the spell cast worth its while (casting on the tank to heal all the melee is probably the best bet I can think of, but I'm hardly an expert). Right now, it's more advisable to spec deep enough into Retribution to get Sheath of Light for the HoT on Critical effect, which is much needed by Holy and not really needed at all by Retribution.

I appreciate what they were trying to do with that (make Retribution a somewhat viable back-up healer), but Retribution never asked for that while Holy did. In addition, many of the gimmicks that they want to give Holy, such as Judging to get benefits to their healing, is something that should have been intrinsic to the class design from day one. While I personally like the concept, I don't know how it will mechanically work out. I also doubt other people will go for it simply based on precedence - meaning that they're so used to being Priests in Plate and not being anywhere near the fight that many won't take the initiative to change their play style. After all, with an option much simpler by, ironically, speccing into Retribution, why would they have to?

I don't think the Evocation-like ability is all that helpful either, especially since the main reason you'd need it is if you were spamming AOE heals. You can only spam the AOE heal 3 times in a row before you're out of mana, and all that means is now you can do it 6 times before you're out of mana.

These are really just some basic observations from someone who knows very little of the matter at hand. I do not have a beta account, so I haven't experienced any of these changes, and my understanding of Holy as a spec is quite limited. But for what it's worth, I don't think the Holy Paladin has been "ruined." I just think it's different now. Sufficient? Well, that I can't say without experience. I do think that they're likely lacking in certain areas, perhaps even to the point where they won't be one of the best single-target tank healers anymore. That doesn't leave much for them to be, or give them much use. I also dislike the idea that you have to have so many points in Retribution for the current optimal build. That's ridiculous.

Something needs to be changed. I don't really know what, and I don't know the fix, but I will concede that Holy Paladins had the worst "upgrade" in the Paladin class, and likely the worst upgrade as a healer, overall. I respectfully request that Blizzard take a look at what they did, and find out what works and what doesn't, and quickly. I understand it's a beta and there's time to fix things... but with their focus being spread all over the board, some things *will* be missed. And I wouldn't be surprised if Holy Paladins are one of the ones getting the shaft this time around.

Is Season 4 Fair? - Part 2 of "Welfare Epics"

Yeaaaah, this is late. I'm just not going to make an excuse and jump right into things. XD
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Admittedly, my article on welfare epics was outdated long before I posted it. So think of this as a bit of a continuation of that article so I can update the argument to include the newest content.

Last time, my argument was that there was some relative truth to the "welfare epics" theory. Generally speaking, the PvP gear is interchangeable with PvE gear despite stressing different functions (longevity versus instantaneous results) and the same is not true vice versa due to the resilience stat. So the new question is, if Seasons one through three were comparable to Tier four through six, what does that make Season 4? Is it unfair that there's a Season 4 available and not a Tier 7?

Now, my first instinct is to say the PvEr's got first advantage with the release of Sunwell in patch 2.4. However, before I form a real opinion, I need to compare the available gear to one another to see which, if either, is superior. I will once again compare Paladin Holy gear for simplicity's sake.

Sunwell |||| Season 4
------- |||| -----------
Armor..............8104 |||| Armor..............8055
Stamina...........207 |||| Stamina...........313
Intelligence.....194 |||| Intelligence.....192
Spell Crit.........93 (100) |||| Spell Crit.........185 (189)
+ Healing........550 |||| + Healing........397
+ Mp5.............65 (70) |||| + Mp5.............0
Resilience.......0 |||| Resilience.......136 (143)
Spell Haste.....64 |||| Spell Haste.....0
5x Red Socket |||| 4x Red Socket
3x Yellow Socket |||| 2x Yellow Socket
3x Blue socket |||| 0x Blue Socket
1x Meta Socket |||| 1x Meta Socket

It is also worth noting that there is no set bonus for having the Sunwell pieces - they aren't part of a set, I'm just comparing the two sets. The lack of slots in comparison on the S4 gear is made up by the two miscellaneous bonuses: The Glove equip which gives a +2% crit chance to Flash of Light spells, and the 4 pc bonus which gives +30% healing to Holy Shock spells.

What we see here is a relative change, but not because of the direct scale in between the gear. Only because we have, at this point, reached the highest tiers and it's gear expectation that scales terribly, not the gear itself. While you could gem for a decent amount of Mp5 to make up for the deficiency, it wouldn't be *enough* for Sunwell standards. To be honest, that could also be true for the S3 to T6 comparison. However, wearing S4 would make you pretty much set on T5 content and under - and it's arguably quite easy to get at least a couple pieces of S4.

The problem of welfare epics, therefore, is not that they're interchangeable at the same level, but that they are easier to obtain to blast through lower level content. Basically, you can skip T4 content, jump straight into T5 and early T6, and get to late T6 to Sunwell content without half the effort other players put into the work. That is the ethical issue that I, and many others, have the problem with.

Even badge gear can't be considered "welfare" as you really do have to work to get the amount of badges it takes to get similar gear. Heroics aren't easy unless you have people way outgearing it, and it's simply a lot easier to grind honor or arena points than it is to farm badges. Perhaps that's a personal opinion, but anyone can jump into a BG or make a 2's team for points - gathering a tank, a healer, and two others to do a Heroic (or gathering a 10-man raid for Kara) is a little more difficult.

What I think I'm most annoyed with is that Blizzard keeps saying they try to make PvP and PvE interchangeable, yet they failed miserably at it by introducing the Resilience stat. There really wasn't a reason to introduce it in the first place - all it really accomplished is screwing over all crit-based damage classes, such as Rogues, Mages, Retribution Paladins, and Boomkins. They all *rely* on their ability to do burst damage, especially when fighting healers. All Resilience did was tip the scales in the healer's favor for survivability - it doesn't really help any of the other classes or specs.

To answer my self-imposed question, Season 4 is not fair - at the very least, it provides near-equivalent T6 (or superior in some cases) Gloves to every class except Tanks for practically no effort. As to the answer for Welfare Epics, while I don't like the concept, I can't say I don't use them. Granted, Blizzard didn't provide me in particular much of a choice - let me know when you see some actual Retribution Paladin gear drop in PvE content. I'll start looking for the flying pigs. =P

Tomorrow, I'll start the delve into the new Paladin talents. That will be the next three posts - distinct analysis on each of the trees for paladins. Unfortunately, I won't be doing this for other classes, since I simply don't possess the knowledge for high-end talents for any other class. Though I may be persuaded to do some rough one-day analysis of particular classes and my thoughts if people really have a demand for it. Simply comment in the next few days and I'll be happy to comply!

90% of All Statistics are Made Up - "Welfare Epics"

Sorry for the tardiness on this one - this week's been rough. Rest assured there will still be another post tomorrow. Expect a continuation; this article is a bit old and written before Patch 2.4, so I don't take into account Sunwell or S4 gear. I will focus on that in particular tomorrow. Think of this as a primer. =)

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Every time I find myself browsing the WoW forums, the biggest "problem" I see peoiple complaining about is the amount of people who never get to see end game content. It's a different percentage every time I see a new thread (though the average seems to be about 6% actually seeing end-game). I can sympathize to an extent. After all, I want to see end game as much as anyone else does. But I feel there's a point that most people are overlooking.

I feel because of the ease of obtaining PvP gear, everyone seems to feel that the game is obligated to hand everything to them. The only class functions who do not benefit from this "welfare epics" system are the tanks - after all, PvP gear has no useful PvE stats for defense and avoidance. Back to my point, people don't have to progress entirely through early PvE content to see later PvE content anymore. This is only true because of the removal of all attunement requirements, from SSC/TK to Hyjal and Black Temple.

What happened when the Hyjal attunement requirement got removed? We saw an influx of PvPers wasting their way through Archimonde after having spent months at the top of Arenas. We saw all the BG farmers use their easily gained PvP items to plow through PvE content.

Allow me to take a step back again. Neither PvE or PvP is easy. At least, not at the furthest tiers. Black Temple isn't a cake walk, and neither is 2k rated Arena. At the very least, Blizzard did a good job of scaling gear requirements for both sides of the game. Running battlegrounds over and over again is much akin to running 5-mans or Heroics repeatedly. Low rated Arenas are kind of like T4 content, mid rated is like T5, and high ratings are like T6. The gear represents these comparisons.

What I have an issue with is the effectiveness of low season PvP in PvE content when the low tier gear for PvE content is practically useless in PvP. Yes, resilience doesn't matter in PvE. But often times, the other stats more than compensate for these wasted points.

Let's make a direct comparison, from the T4 gear to the Season 1. I'm going to use the Paladin Holy gear as it's the easiest to compare between and the best for my own personal knowledge to make educated statements about.

Tier 4 |||| Season 1
------- |||| -----------
Armor..............6136 |||| Armor..............6284
Stamina...........163 (169) |||| Stamina...........209
Intelligence.....164 (167) |||| Intelligence.....141
Spell Crit.........67 |||| Spell Crit.........130 (134)
+ Healing........396 |||| + Healing........257
+ Mp5.............22 (24) |||| + Mp5.............0
Resilience.......0 |||| Resilience.......124 (131)
1x Red Socket |||| 4x Red Socket
2x Yellow Socket |||| 2x Yellow Socket
3x Blue socket |||| 0x Yellow Socket
1x Meta Socket |||| 1x Meta Socket

So, basically, as expected, the S1 gear is made for survivability while the T4 gear supports longevity. While you could easily socket for MP5 and get only slightly lower amount in the S1 than the T4, the same cannot be said for the lack of resilience on the T4 (not that anyone really sockets for resilience as it is). While Blizzard has supposedly supported the interchangeability between PvP and PvE, it seems the PvP items are generally itemized better for this swap than the PvE gear is. This only becomes slightly less true at higher tiers.

Tier 6 |||| Season 2
------- |||| -----------
Armor..............7415 |||| Armor..............7415
Stamina...........193 |||| Stamina...........268
Intelligence.....173 |||| Intelligence.....166
Spell Crit.........116 (118) |||| Spell Crit.........158 (162)
+ Healing........522 (542) |||| + Healing........341
+ Mp5.............42 (44) |||| + Mp5.............0
Resilience.......0 |||| Resilience.......136 (143)
0x Red Socket |||| 4x Red Socket
4x Yellow Socket |||| 2x Yellow Socket
4x Blue socket |||| 0x Yellow Socket
1x Meta Socket |||| 1x Meta Socket

While you have more gem slots in the T6 gear, you still can't make up the deficiency in resilience. And though meeting Mp5 standards in S3 is difficult and won't be on the same par, it's still do-able. On top of this, there is much more availability in other slots (trinkets, rings, misc armor) for Mp5 than there is for resilience.

I do not claim this is an absolute truth for all specs and class combinations, but I do believe I'm onto something. Perhaps there is a truth in the Welfare Epics theory after all.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about Season 4 and the fairness of giving PvPer's the option to higher end gear than is available to PvE'ers - or whether that theory is debunkable.

How is *that* Plate? - Gender in Armor Styles

Cross-posted from Gathering Gamers

Many people have joked and poked fun at it, so it was inevitable that I'd bring it up: Why the hell does one piece of armor look less effective on a woman than it does a man?

I'm not going to lie; this is just another reason I rolled a male character over a female. If I'm going to play a paladin, and uphold the light (or at least my race's moral code and protect others), I don't want to look like a skank while doing it! Some armor is passable. Some can look sexy and mold to a woman's curves while still looking badass.

But no self-respecting warrior is going to charge into combat with large vulnerable areas of the body out in the open just because "Tee hee, don't I look cute?"

I understand that because WoW is a male dominated game that it's likely just designed that way to get their attention and give them something to look at. In the same right, what do women have to look at? Big clunky armor, and in the case of Paladins, big PINK AND PURPLE clunky armor.

Granted, culturally speaking, a knight in shining armor is supposed to be attractive. And sure, I can buy into that. However, dressing my sexy male Blood Elf in a power ranger-esque suit isn't going to do it.

I'm all for cosmetic armor and making things look *good,* and maybe sometimes sexy. But for crying out loud, why can't women enjoy the perks too without walking around Orgrimmar or Stormwind naked?

I'm looking forward to seeing more customization with my character. The coming of dances and haircuts that have been rumoured about for Wrath of the Lich King really makes me excited. I hope that with the new choices, it brings a little more diversity to everyone's characters. I'll leave the wish of practicality as just that, though; a wish. After all, since when has anything in World of Warcraft ever been practical?

Battleground's Holy Warriors

Cross-Posted from Gathering Gamers.

So naturally, as soon as I say I'm going to do something, I get sick and don't touch a computer for a few days. Naturally. Now that I'm feeling better though, I'll put up what I intended to have on Tuesday. So here we go.

You've heard everyone else say it before: Protection is not a PvP spec. And to an extent, I agree. In arenas, we have no competitive place. But in Battlegrounds, a whole other beast, there's a time to take up your shield and laugh in the face of your enemies.

Let's start with Warsong Gulch. There are three roles any player can take: Offense, Defense, and Flag Running. As a Protection Paladin, you can fulfill two of these three roles.

As Defense, while your damage is sub-par, you have a few good tools to keep a flag runner slowed down enough to have your teammates clean up. Avenger's Shield will slow their movement speed, Judgement of Justice will halt their speed boosts, and of course Hammer of Justice will stop them in their tracks. In addition, standing atop the flag and keeping a Rank 1 Consecration down will alert you to any stealthers trying to snag the flag without wasting much mana.

As a flag-runner, while you're not going to have a speed boost from your class (unless you've taken Pursuit of Justice in the Retribution tree), your Cleanse and Blessing of Freedom will almost guarantee you won't be stopped or slowed down. Even if you're being chased down by half of the opposing team, if you have a competent healer following you, you'll be fine. Sheer hit points and a high amount of armor means they have a lot to plow through before you go down.

Next, we have Arathi Basin. Admittedly, this is my least favorite battleground (when once upon a time, it was my favorite), mostly because it seems to be the most frequently pre-rolled. There are only two roles for an individual to fulfill here: Offense and Defense. A tankadin really can only act on one of these.

Naturally, this would be defense. Down-ranking Consecration again proves useful to keep people from snatching nodes, and even if you have 4 or 5 people on you, you'll have enough survivability to hold them off until reinforcements arrive.

As for the other role, the best you'll likely provide in offense is a huge annoyance or a good distraction. Toss some heals around; if the enemy's on you and not on the actual healers or damage dealers, then you're being effective. Just never expect a lot of killing blows when all is said and done.

Next is everyone's old favorite, Alterac Valley. For a long time, I had no experience with this battleground, as I never had a character of level. And yet, once Prettyboi could participate, leveling up to seventy was so much more important. Once the battleground dailies came about, I finally had a reason to explore it. I found that this is, hands down, the best place for a Protection Paladin.

While you could play the defense card like in the other battlegrounds (and be just as effective as in those places), there are other things you could be doing on the offensive where you will prove the most useful. Whether it's consecrating points and holding off the guards while someone else captures it, or tanking the commander NPC's, you are *needed* on the front lines. And it's wonderfully refreshing! AV, dare I say, has the most situations for a Paladin tank to shine. Not just any tank, either; having many patrols of 3-4 NPCs roaming around should be hint enough.

Finally, we have Eye of the Storm. As a hybrid of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, you'll find all the same jobs here. Flag carrying, node guarding, flag guarding... Though by far, the most unique (and personally satisfying) experience is sniping with Avenger's Shield at the Blood Elf Tower. No, really. Try it sometime. It's hilarious.

While people will argue (and generally accurately) that Protection is not a PvP spec, that does not mean we lack a place within the PvP realms. As I said when I talked about Arenas, no, you're not going to be some PvP all-star, and don't expect that. However, don't let people tell you that you're useless, either.

Player vs Class Competency

(Cross-Posted from: Gathering Gamers )

While I didn't receive any questions ;-; this week for what I wanted to be a Q&A session, of the one comment I received, it was a compliment.

Basically, the person said I was the only competent tankadin they had ever met, at least by the measures of my post. Apparently, what I had written was thorough enough to show that I knew my stuff.

That got me thinking about what I decided to make today's topic instead of a Q&A session (Which I still want to do, so please, keep thinking of questions to ask me!). I decided I'd talk about Players vs Class competency.

Whenever I'm trolling the WoW forums, I usually stick to three forums total: the Paladin forums (of course), the Rogue forums (my closest WoW buddy is a Rogue, so I try to keep up on their changes too), and the General forums (mostly 'cause I get a laugh out of it on occasion).

I spend, naturally, most of my time on the Paladin forums, and I notice a very equal amount of a) seasoned, knowledgable paladins (of all specs), b) newbie paladins asking for advice in a generally polite way, and c) noob paladins which cause most other classes to tell all paladins to DIAF.

Of the other classes that come to our boards to visit, I tend to notice Shamans being the most courteous. I see more topics started by full level 70 Shamans complimenting us on our skill or our perseverance in dealing with the slowness Blizzard has taken to make our class fully functional (and not just made to heal-bot). After that, surprisingly, I tend to see more Rogues than anything else.

The largest complainers on our board seems to be Warlocks and Priests (especially Shadow Priests), the two of which we have more trouble against in PVP in anything else.

I find this interesting, because this says to me the whiners are only there to supplement NOT buffing us (even if there is a valid problem), because they're afraid to actually have a class that can, zomg, beat them one-on-one. Priests don't have any problems against other casters (from my limited experience), and Warlocks... well, I won't get into my feelings about Warlocks. *coughOPcough*

I've derailed a little bit; so what does this have to do with player versus class competency? Well, it's the generalization that you run into one, maybe two, of a class who is a total jerk or a moron, and instantly the automatic response is the assumption that ALL of said class is a jerk and/or a moron. I rarely talk to any of the warlocks in my guild; is this a subconscious level of thinking in that they're all jerks or that they all play an easy class? I'm not sure. I made friends with one warlock in my guild (as we were running a weekly Karazhan together). He changed my opinion. I still thought Warlocks were a tad overpowered, and while he did have a mean streak against the Alliance (I'm on a PvP server, so to be honest, most of us gank when possible because it's very much a gank-or-be-ganked kind of game at that point), he was the first person in the guild to give me a real chance to be a tank. He was the one who helped me pave my way to where I am now. He has since left the guild (and the server), and while he will be missed, I will forever be grateful to him for what he did.

I think, from anyone's perspective, the jerks on your server are immediately the class that you know you can't beat. For Paladins, its warlocks and (shadow) priests (I don't think I've ever had a Holy Priest try to gank me, though I bet it would be great fun from my perspective XD), and the occasional Hunter. (Or maybe that's just for me). For Rogues, its... well, just about everyone except the really squishy casters. For Warriors, its Hunters and Warlocks (from what I remember from playing a warrior). I think this sentiment is particularly emphasized on a PvP server, at that. You level up being ganked constantly by certain classes, because they know they can beat you. I never felt too much anger against Rogues, because even if they were a few levels higher than me, I could usually kick their asses. Same with Warriors.

Now let's talk about PUGs. For those of you who don't know what a PUG is, it's a Pick Up Group, or one that you throw together with complete strangers to accomplish a common goal (be it a hard quest/5-man instance, which is more common, or a raid, which is much less common). PUGs, I believe, are the single biggest source of misinformation. Most of the idiots and jerks run with PUGs out there, because they can screw over their party members with no sense of obligation or fear of getting /gkicked. This is where the ninja looters, dumbasses who don't know their own class, or insufferable know-it-alls tend to hang out. I really hate PUGing, particularly at 70. Before then, I had fewer problems (beyond LOL Paladin tank, /kick), mostly because I was willing and able to heal the lower content (Survivadin spec FTW).

I have met countless person after person who /tells me "Wanna heal this?" and I immediately respond with "Sorry, I'm not a healer." Usually, they stop talking to me. This is only because I stopped replying "Sorry, I'm a tank," which usually gets an "LOL" or a "Paladins can't tank," and then I argue with a complete stranger for about fifteen minutes because I either have nothing better to do, or I'm just in that kind of mood. I was pleasantly surprised last night when I got a whisper of "Excuse me, are you a tank?" After I blinked several times, I replied that I was, and was asked to link my gear. Given that I'm in almost full Tier 4 at this point in time, and I think I have a total of three blues left, I was immediately asked to tank Heroic Shadow Labs. If it wasn't so late and I didn't hate the instance so much (dear god, how I hate it), I might have gone along, but I was happy that they were actually actively seeking a paladin tank, and told them good job, keep it up.

I wonder if they ever found another one to take; SLabs honestly only is worth doing with a Paladin tank, and Heroic, only with exceptionally geared individuals. But I digress.

This whole post has been kinda garbled and tangential, but what I'm basically trying to say is that the reputation of a class is always, ALWAYS based on the individuals that play it. Because Warlock seems to be an easy-mode kind of class (at least to basically function), more people play it, and therefore, it's likely more unknowledgeable/jerk-off players populate it. Paladins and Hunters are honestly the same way, and I hear there are a lot of jerk-off Rogues out there too (I've just never had a huge problem with them). What anyone, everyone, need to remember, though, is that each class has its good players and bad players. Each game, for that matter, has its good players and bad players. And some players are better at some things than others (for instance, I blow monkey chunks at PvP, but I get daily compliments on my ability to tank).

Long story short, never judge a book by its cover. Avoid mishaps by Armory-ing people before you invite them to group.

Next Tuesday, if I have enough questions, I'll proceed with my Q&A. If not, well, I guess I'll just have to surprise you all again. =)

The Rundown – A comparison of Warrior, Druid, and Paladin tanks

(Cross-posted from: http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

Since this seems to be the biggest issue with most uninformed people out there, I decided to put off the guide I had been planning on releasing today (Tanking 5-mans) and release this first. In addition, I’m moving up a couple of shorter topics so I have more time to dedicate to fuller, more comprehensive guides (One that takes you through all of K arazhan, for instance).

So what this is all about is that I’ve noticed that most people seem to think a tank is a tank, they hold the big boys, get the crap kicked out of them, and let the rest of the raid do all the work.

WRONG.

There is a time and place for all three tank types to be used equally, and there are situations where one type is flat out better than another. So here, I’m going to break down the three classes that can currently tank (Warriors, Druids, and Paladins), and list both their strengths and their weaknesses. This is as researched and objective as I can make it without having fully played either other type of tank myself, but from the opinions of others who have. It’s mostly a compilation, I claim only the amalgamation of the information.

So enough big words. Here we go.

Warriors

Strengths
-Most versatile. Warriors have the largest selection of abilities at their disposal. Not only that, but they often have more than one ability that functions similarly (stuns, disarms, silences, etc). So if one fails, they have another to try. This makes them easily usable for just about any situation.
-Spell Mitigation. Warriors are the only ones who have an outright ability to mitigate spell damage. (Paladins have a flat percentage they don’t take, but it’s very small, and Druids just have the hit points to deal with it) Between Spell Reflect and having a higher overall percentage of damage resisted, Warriors are the only real choice for spell-heavy fights.
-Best Single-target agro generation. Warriors, overall, will generate the most agro against a single target. Generally, they are the preferred tank for most raid bosses.
-Take the least damage overall. Warriors have the highest flat percentage of damage just not taken. Druids have next to none besides armor, and Paladins trail behind by about 4%
-Easiest to gear. Warriors probably have the best itemization, as they’ve been the most viable tank for the longest amount of time. It’s a matter of waiting for something to drop or grinding the right rep like any other class, where as both Druids and Paladins have to jump through a couple more hoops.
-Best OS (Oh SH!T) buttons. Warriors have the best abilities to bounce back from potentially dangerous situations.

Weaknesses
-Cannot handle many adds. Warriors are not built to handle tanking more than two, maybe three things at the same time without an incredible amount of skill and some luck. Even then, I doubt too many people could tab between 5-6 adds to keep agro on them all.
-Easily Crushable against fast-melee bosses. A Warrior’s shield block has fewer charges than a Paladin’s Holy Shield, causing them to be more vulnerable to crushing blows against quick-melee bosses (such as Prince’s phase 2).
-Slow Initial Aggro. This means your DPS starts later, which can be important in timed fights.
-No direct raid utility. All warrior direct buffs only affect people in their party. While useful, they don’t last very long, and odds are they won’t be as frequent to keep it up if they have ten other abilities they need to be juggling in a fight. (Their indirect buffs, like sunder for instance, are very useful, but not part of this category).
-Vulnerable to disarming. A disarmed warrior is severely gimped in comparison to a disarmed Paladin (who can still fully function), or a druid who can’t be disarmed.
-Generate the least DPS. Warriors generate the least amount of DPS in comparison to their Paladin or Druid companions. Much of their agro comes from flat abilities, not from actual damage.
-Difficult to play. Warriors have many more abilities to sift through than a Paladin or Druid, requiring a greater knowledge and extent of training to master.

Druids

Strengths
-Mass HP. Druids just plain have more stamina than Warriors or Paladins. They also have less stats to gear for or worry about, so they can itemize for stamina easier than the other two.
-Mass Armor. Same reasons for Mass HP.
-Best Dodge Formula. Druids receive the most benefit from Agility to Dodge, and their Dodge is almost always infinitely higher than any given Warrior or Paladin. Therefore, when something is mitigated against a Druid, he always takes zero damage.
-Deal the most damage. While tanking, a Druid will pump out more total DPS than either a Warrior or a Paladin, as most of their threat is derived from flat damage.
-Best Off-Tanks. Period. Druids have a slightly lesser reliance on Rage to generate threat, and can easily off-tank any encounter. In addition, they can easily off-tank from a DPS perspective (kitty form) while in their tanking gear, and easily swap to a tanking position should something happen to the primary tank.
-Best secondary role. A druid tank who is not in a tanking position offers the most in a different role, given their spec. Since their DPS and Tank tree are one in the same, they can make a gear swap for DPS and perform leaps and bounds above a Warrior or Paladin in a secondary role.
-Good raid utility. Druids offer all their normal Druid spells to the rest of the raid, including Mark of the Wild, Thorns, and in extreme emergencies, innervate and battle-resurrection.

Weaknesses
-Always Crushable. Druids cannot parry or block, and thus lack the capability of becoming immune to Crushing Blows.
-No overall avoidance/mitigation. Druids have armor and HP to make up for this lack of mitigation, but a string of crushing blows or heavy hitting spell damage will still take one out.
-Oh SH!T button is weak. I don’t even know what the Druid OS button is. Someone please enlighten me.
Paladins

Strengths
-“Frontloading” capability. Paladins start with a full “blue rage bar,” and can open up any fight with a heavy spike of threat, allowing DPS to start quicker.
-Least likely to be crushed. The Paladin shield ability (Holy Shield) has more charges and lasts longer. Specifically, against quick-melee bosses, Paladins have the highest probability for survival.
-AOE tanks. They are unique in the sense that they are the only tank that can effectively tank several mobs at once. In theory, they could hold agro on an infinite number of mobs, due to their reactive high-threat damage.
-Wipe Recovery. Beyond a druid’s once every half-hour resurrection, a Paladin can always resurrect others after a wipe. In addition, if too many healers or DPS has died, the tank can opt to Divine Intervention a remaining individual with a resurrect ability.
-Ranged Taunt. Paladins are the only tank with a ranged taunt ability, as clunky as it may be.
-Excellent Raid Utility. A Paladin’s Auras and Blessings are always welcome, if not ultimately desired, in any raid.

Weaknesses
-Mana/magic dependent. This is a problem against enemies or bosses that are immune to magic, can silence, or can mana-drain.
-Poor Off-tanks. Paladins do not generate nearly enough threat to be good off-tanks without being over-geared on spell-damage, as most of their usual threat is reactive damage from being directly hit.
-No single-target taunt. This sucks. It really, REALLY does. A Paladin needs to be able to front-load damage on an enemy to “taunt” off a fellow tank. Their only two “taunts” will not work at all in this situation (as one will pull off multiple targets, and the other causes all enemies to go to the next person on the agro chart, which isn’t always the paladin).
-Tanking Buff can be dispelled. While a Warrior’s Defensive stance is static, Righteous Fury can be dispelled, and it’s a very expensive spell to cast. This can cause a severe mana-drain for a Paladin tank.
-Take slightly more damage. Where as Druids have straight armor and the hit points to take blows, and warriors have a higher damage reduction, Paladins have nothing to compensate for having only 6% damage reduction.
-All abilities on GCD. All of a Paladin’s abilities, with the exception of Judgement, are on the Global Cool Down. Paladins require a higher amount of ability micro-management than either Druids or Warriors.

TL:DR?

Here’s the short version:
Warriors – General preferred MTs, most versatile.
Druids – Best OTs, most HP/Armor
Paladins – The best multiple-mob tanks.

This is not to say that any of the other tank types can’t function in those other roles; they can, and quite effectively so. But what a good Raid Leader or Guild Leader for that matter should know is that there are times and places where individual tank types can rise to the challenge above others and be given the chance to shine. And hopefully, if they possess the basic knowledge of how all three function, they’ll know when and where those situations arise.

Next post! (Which WILL be done on Saturday, come hell or high water) I want to answer your questions! Send me your questions via Private Message or even just replying to this post, and they will be answered! Anything posted on Saturday before I start writing (likely in the morning, around 10AM Central) will NOT be accepted. So please send me your questions! They don't even have to be about Tankadins; Anything WoW related will do, though do remember I know next to nothing about Druids/Hunters/Warlocks/Shaman, and my knowledge of the other classes beyond that is limited (though I know a bit about Rogues, Warriors, Mages, and less about Priests). I'll also answer any questions you have about myself, but I will try to keep it on-topic about WoW as much as possible. =D

See you Saturday!

Arena-ing as a Tankadin: Futile but Fun

(Crossposted from http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

Once again, I'm going to take a moment to apologize for my lengthy absence. I've already given the reasons, so I'll just go ahead and plow on to today's topic.

Anytime you log on to do your Arena-ing for the week, it's rare that you'll run into a Tankadin during your battles. We simply aren't built for handling Arenas; all the defense rating we built up is going to be next to useless, and if we don't have resilience gear, we'll be as easy to push over as a clothie against the more serious teams. However, this doesn't mean you can't do it, and even more importantly, that you can't have fun doing it.

First off, if you're going to do it at all, know now that you CANNOT take it seriously. Do not expect to get a high rating, and if you breach 1500 points after the first couple weeks of a season, consider yourself lucky. Being a Tankadin in Arena is a serious detriment to your team, so make sure the people who have invited you (or that you have invited) know beforehand your intentions. It's not going to be easy.

Personally, I do it for good old "S&G's." I think it's kind of hilarious when the warriors or rogues charge me from across the map and end up killing themselves on all my defensive abilities because they thought I was a Holy paladin. I also have a hell of a lot more survivability than my rogue counterpart does in my 2v2, or even than the feral druid in my 3v3. Mostly due to sheer hit points, dodge, parry, and block rating. (Ardent Defender is really aggravating for an opponent too.)

Now for the actual advice part. Let's break this down into equipment advice, abilities, other class compliments, and tactics.

Equipment Advice:

-Stam, stam, and more stam. This is what you have going for you. Stack stam and resilience gems in any slots you might have if you're going to be taking this "seriously."

-Arena gear: Get the "prot" set. I haven't done this myself yet (what can I say, I'm lazy and don't PvP often), but with the availability now of Season 1 gear, you might as well go grind out the honor and stack yourself up. The resilience will only increase your survivability, and that's the game you're playing in Arenas. The extra spell damage will be nice too, since you'll actually be able to dole out some damage on those foolish enough to actually come after you.

-Prioritize a little more Int: This won't be hard with the arena sets, since they provide Int, but remember that it's unlikely someone's going to be healing you in arena (and if anything, you'll be the back-up healer), so your mana regeneration is going to suck (or be non-existent). Given that you can say "screw it" to defense and a lot more of the mitigation abilities, this will be relatively easy to do.

Key Abilities:

Blessing of Sanctuary - This, in my honest opinion, will be your strongest blessing for Arenas. What you want to do is draw people TO you. A good 90% of teams will not realize that you are, in fact, protection-specced unless they take a real good look at your buffs and are familiar with protection paladins themselves. (Though they likely will notice something is up when they see how small your mana pool is, and may deem you Retribution instead.) The trick of the game is to get them to hit you and for you to survive it, so stacking all your passive damage effects is a must.

Retribution Aura - Again, stacking passive damage. Use it; all your other auras will be relatively useless unless you're in a 5v5 with a group of casters (Then go ahead and use Concentration Aura). Devotion won't give you enough damage reduction to be worth it, and the resistance auras generally don't seem to help much. Crusader Aura is kind of fun to toss up if you manage to get mounted; I've had a lot of infuriated opponents chase me around the arena trying to get a lock on me.

Righteous Fury - If you're prot specc'd and understand the spec, you know why you should have this up. Obviously it's not for threat generation, but the 6% less damage against EVERYTHING will be your best friend, especially against those spell casters who you have so little defense against. Costly to put back up in battle, though, so I'd only cast it at the beginning, or later if you have a lot of mana or are getting a lot of heals. It's also nice to have as a dispell buffer so your opponents wipe that out first rather than your blessings or any other buffs your team might have given you.

Avenger's Shield - This is mighty useful in Arena, especially when your enemy decides you (or your other teammates) are a force to be reckoned with and try to run away. Again, the element of surprise is key; not only does it look like a heal spell while you're casting it (for the whole 1.5 seconds), but no one's really going to expect to be hit with a flying shield in an Arena match, so they probably won't have anymore cooldowns to blow when running away, leaving your daze in effect. If you have a lot of spell damage stacked, this can also be one hell of a hard hitter, especially if you can manage to bounce it off multiple opponents. Very nice.

Consecration - The Stealth finder. Down-rank this and have fun walking around finding the stealthers before they find you. You stop caring about the damage when it's only costing you about 100 mana per cast.

Seals: Generally, I'll judge Crusader and go to town with Seal of Blood (as a Blood Elf) or Seal of Righteousness. Judging Seal of Light can be fun, especially if you have some quick melee hitters on your team (like rogues, feral druids, or fury warriors). Usually, though, you're not worried about doing anything else but providing support. Holding up Seal of Justice and judging it can be good times too; slow down their movement and stun casters. Seal of Wisdom I've only used in one fight ever, and I'll explain that one later.

Hammer of Justice: Your one and only stun (barring Seal of Justice, but it's so unreliable it doesn't really count). Know it, love it, use it for interrupts. Seriously, the best thing you can do to support your team is keep casters busy. They'll likely be after you anyway once they figure out you're not what you appear to be, and shutting down the healer is the most important part of any Arena match. Doing it when they're about to get a big heal off is just a little self-satisfaction icing on the cake.

Hammer of Wrath: Too much fun, really. Try to spam this as much as possible if your opponent gets under 20%. It's one of the few ways for you to do a lot of damage really quickly.

Avenging Wrath: This is for going all out on someone, but it's not something I use all that much since it instigates the Forbearance cooldown. I'd avoid usage, especially early on, as you'll likely need to bubble later once they figure out you're spell vulnerable.

Racial Abilities: As I'm a Blood Elf and I've never played a paladin of another class, I'll be sorely lacking in this information. Arcane Torrent is, by far, the most useful racial you could have as a paladin in PvP. It gives you another interrupt, and against all-caster arena teams, you will be the bane of their existence (Well, every 2 minutes anyway). The Drenai's Gift of the Naaru ability is really nice to toss up, though I'd always expend healing on your teammates before yourself (you should have the hit points to deal with it anyway, and it's likely anyone else on your team will be squishier than you). A Dwarf's Stoneform is amazing for cleansing yourself of those nasty bleed effects you normally can't get rid of otherwise, so save it for the Rogue/Warrior/Druid abilities that stack up. Lastly, there's the Human Perception ability; yet another way for you to catch stealthers, and let you place perhaps a full-rank consecration on top of the unsuspecting ones.

Class Compliments:

In all reality, since you're likely not taking this seriously anyway, play with whomever you want. The point is, after all, to have fun with it. One way or the other, you're going to end up with silly stories and a lot of interesting memories. But, for those of you wanting to maybe accomplish a little more, I'll tell you what's worked for me.

2v2

My 2v2 partner is a rogue, and this works out quite well. He's hemo-specc'd, and everyone assumes I'm Holy and charges after me. During the confusion and frustration where they discover I am not a healer, he'll have already toasted a clothie or at least stun-locked their healer. If I can keep the melee busy, he'll sneak up and kill the ranged, and that works out rather lovely.

I would therefore then assume that a feral-specc'd druid in this role would function equally well. If you're playing the decoy game like I do, you want a stealther in your group.

I haven't tried out much else (there's no one else in our 2v2, and I can't blame them; our rating was terrible last season XD); if you have an obvious healer, they'll go kill them first. The theory could work with a warrior. They'll probably still assume you're Holy and go after you. If you have any ranged, though, it's probably likely they'll try to kill the ranged guy first; even if you WERE a healer, the ranged person is a helluva a lot squishier and likely to get burst-down. At this point, blow what mana you have on keeping them alive (or Blessing of Protection them). You want them coming after you; end of story.

3v3

Again, I keep stealthers about me. We're a Feral druid/Hemo rogue/Prot pally combination, and boy does it work out nicely. With both of them in stealth, everyone comes after me and they have the opportunity to sneak up and just utterly tear apart one of their team. Once we get them down to 2 opponents, the win is pretty inevitable.

If you're not going this option, then I'd take people who can disable others; a mage and a warlock with a prot pally would be interesting, with Polymorph on one guy and a Fel Hunter on a caster. But again; you're likely to be a detriment. You don't do a lot of damage, and if your casters are the ones doing everything, the other team's going to catch on pretty quickly.

5v5

I have the least experience here. I've only done a few, and I respecc'd Holy for a couple of the matches. There honestly isn't a whole lot of room for a Prot pally in 5v5. The chaos is ultimate, though you may benefit your team by taking a lot of the crowd control from the other side, or being single targetted first (earning your team a little head start on killing someone), forcing them to burn through your massive amount of hit points.

5v5's are so varied that I can't honestly offer much support advice; after all, you *are* the support. I'd say start out as a healer in 5v5 (even in Prot gear; just spam Flash of Light), and with two healers on whoever is being single-targetted, or you being forced into crowd control over your true healer, you'll have done a lot right there.

Tactics

I've offered a lot of my tactics already, but here's a quick run-down again, as well as advice on what classes will screw you up and who to look out for.

-Be the Decoy. This is going to be your best bet; your job in Arena is to soak up the damage that could otherwise be directed onto your teammates. It's like tanking in that regard; except your enemy has a wild aggro bar that you can't hold. Play the healer for a while, get them on you, and let the passive damage do the rest of the work.

-Stack spell damage. If you want to be dealing damage, stack spell damage over everything else. Your passive damage abilities will be dealing the most when you're in the ideal situation, and there's nothing quite like throwing 800+ Avenger's Shields on a regular basis. (I keep hoping I'll crit for 2k someday. =O )

-Toast Warlock Pets. ESPECIALLY succubus pets. Most others will tell you to leave them be, but this is what'll kill you in Arenas as a paladin. Succubi in particular have a lot less health than other Warlock pets, and your Exorcism will make quick work of them. And if you happen to have a Fel Hunter against you, drag it away from the rest of your casters in the group and take it out yourself. It's better to have you spell-locked than your healer or your major burst damage mage spell-locked.

-Leave Hunter pets alone. If there's a pet to leave alone, it would be the hunter's. The damage they do in the long run is negligible and a the hunter himself is a lot more dangerous (especially if he has Silencing Shot).

-Buff your party members. A no brainer, but hey, I guess it couldn't hurt to mention. Don't bother with greater blessings; Arena matches shouldn't last longer than 10 minutes, and if they do, rebuffing in combat isn't hard if you have the Pally Power add-on (WHICH EVERY PALADIN SHOULD, RAWR, ).

-Have fun. Don't get frustrated if you don't win; you shouldn't be expecting to win! Prot is entirely inferior in arenas, and my advice is only going to help you aggravate the other side and maybe win every once in a while a little more often. Prot paladins are a PvE spec, and you should never expect them to excel in anything other than what they are good at; tanking.

I'd like to leave everyone with a hilarious little treat; sometime last week before Thanksgiving, I popped on to do my 2v2 with my good buddy Kaitou. I'm still wondering if I set a record or something, because one of our matches lasted an hour and six minutes.

Best 7 point win EVER

There's the screenshot. It was basically about an hour of me and a feral druid running around in circles, disabling the other so we could heal, then running around in circles some more. Finally, the druid thought he might be able to burst me down by exiting combat, stealthing, and pouncing me. So I worked my way over to Kaitou, bubbled, and rezzed him. We won shortly thereafter.

Remember, Prot paladins aren't GOOD in arena. But... they aren't always bad either. ;)

Trials of a Tankadin: Why We're NOT "Priests in Plate"

(Crossposted from http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

First off, I apologize for this post being late. As such, there will be a second post going up later tonight; I try to keep to a Tuesday/Saturday posting schedule, and as a senior in college with finals this past week, this blog just fell to the bottom of the priority list. It's back up though, so don't expect me to miss much more in the coming weeks.

This post was meant to be up on Tuesday, which would have been wonderfully ironic given the release of patch 2.3. Patch 2.3 signifies the solidity of the paladin tank, and allows us one less argument as to why warriors and druids will always be "better" than us. That barrier, specifically the health barrier, no longer exists, and I am happy to observe such an important day in the history of WoW for the Tankadin.

However, not everyone looks at the new numbers. There are likely still many ignorant guild leaders, class officers, or other general players who will continue to insist that paladins are "priests in plate." So I still feel the need to finish this article. At the least, you can take this as a reflective post on the things I had to overcome to get to where I am today; it's all very relevant, as I know I'm not the only one who struggled to this spot, and I know I won't be the last either.

Now that that's all out of the way...

Being a paladin tank is only easy before 70. Before 70, anyone in plate (or bear form) is suitable for the job, regardless of what their spec or gear looks like. Lower level instances just aren't designed for the necessity of a dedicated tank. On the flip-side of the coin, it's just as easy for tankadins (or retadins) to be recruited as healers. And at low levels, there's no reason to say no. Your fellow holy paladins are probably being asked to tank from time to time, and there's no reason for them to say no either (well, unless they're walking around in cloth). It's just not a big deal until end game.

Which brings up the point. So you've hit 70! How do you prove yourself? There's two things you need to do:

-Gear yourself up. This includes solo-questing, rep-grinding, and/or profession grinding as well as running instances for lucky drops. Don't rely on your guild or on others to gear you up. You want to tank? Make it your responsibility to be where you need to be to do so.

-Run Shattered Halls. No, really. Shattered Halls is, hands down, the best place for a paladin tank to prove their worth. Admittedly, the first time you pull an entire group of elites and your group freaks out, it's pretty funny. But you really should let them know your game plan. Especially for the pulls that require you to run out of line of sight in order to get the casters and archers to come your way. Run an efficient AOE group through Shattered Halls (which can be done anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, though I average about 45 minutes), and you'll be frequently asked for return performances; I guarantee it.

Why is all this proof necessary though? There's a lot of reasons. There's the initial stigma, which seems to be worse on the Horde side than Alliance (at least on my server), there's the hybrid assumption, and there's the gear issue.

The initial stigma, of course, is that paladins, being related to Holy, are obviously only meant to follow that path. WRONG. Paladins are crusaders of justice, warriors of light, meant to serve and protect. If nothing else, the tree that describes that the LEAST is Holy. Prince Arthas himself was a Retribution paladin, fighting with a two-hander for the light until he lost his way. When the most iconic character of a class has their tree represented the least, there's a problem, wouldn't you agree? Holy was the first tree to be "fixed," and to date is the strongest tree the paladin has to offer. This is true; paladins are the strongest single-target healer in the game.

But they're the only tank that can handle 6-10 mobs and not allow themselves or others to die. And I'd put something interesting in here about Retribution paladins, but I honestly know nothing about them and don't want to say something ignorant or uninformed. But they're cool! XD

The hybrid argument, that being that all hybrids are meant to be healers, is the worst argument anyone can throw at you. If hybrids are meant to be healers, go tell that to the feral druids who are taking my job. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against people who like playing feral druids (until they whip me in arena, then they can DIAF), if that's how they like playing, more power to them. But I have issues with Blizzard buffing a leather-wearer to be a tank first over the other plate wearers. How does that make any sense?

The gear issue is the worst, though. There is, arguably, very little gear for tankadins, ESPECIALLY in the way of weaponry. Beyond our tier, you're not going to find stuff with much spell damage and defensive stats (though Zul'Aman brought some real nice goodies). Our weapons are total crap; we have to fight with the warlocks for the stam/spell damage swords, because they don't want to give us something like Crystalforged Sword, except, you know, epic.

Just the same, what it all comes down to is the amount of dedication you give the class and spec. Persevere! If you stick with it and you show people what you can do, no one can stop you. It will be hard. But in all honesty, I believe it's worth it in the end, especially if you get to play the way you want to play. I know it's possible.

After all, I did it.

Why Prettyboi? - Why I play a male character

(Crossposted at http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

I'm sure this is a constant question that goes through people's minds when they talk to me, especially right after finding out my gender. Why on Earth would a woman go out of her way to play a male character, and even moreso, partially obscure the fact she is in fact female?

Well, beyond the fact that I find it highly entertaining (Oh, come on, like you wouldn't enjoy the shock and reactions from people if you did the same thing), I do have some rather valid reasons. Let's plow through these one by one, shall we?

-If men can use the excuse, so can I.

By this, I mean that when men are asked the same question ("Why aren't you playing your gender?"), they tend to retort "Well, I don't want to stare at a guy's ass for 70 levels of grinding." Okay, I give them that. I can agree. While I am, in fact, bisexual and can't use the exact line of thinking, I do overall prefer men to women. So yes, I would rather stare at a nice looking male than I would a nice looking female. But that's my personal preference.

-To avoid being treated unfairly.

I don't think anyone will disagree with me when I say women are treated differently than men are in an MMO. Either telling people you're female gets you a flood of tells akin to "A/S/L plz!" or gets you the ridicule of "gurlz dun play gamez, lulz." Neither of which I particularly care to read or deal with. I'm not going to argue the FACT that I am female; you're not going to believe me anyway, so what's the use?

Say they DO believe me though? What does that get me? It gets me put up on some pedestal I didn't asked to be placed on. The entire reason I even play an MMO is for the sense of accomplishment I get from earning my place in the virtual world. Suddenly, by being female, I'm instantly privileged and treated better than everyone who doesn't have a vagina. I don't want that. Sure, I receive a little of it regardlessly from time to time, and sometimes it's nice (mostly the people being more courteous to you than anything else), but on a whole, I don't want to be treated different because of a trait I have that's irrelevant to the game. It's stupid; let me earn my keep, damnit!

-It's something different

Yeah, this reason is simple in itself. It is something different. All my previous characters on all my other servers were female. It gets tiring doing the same thing over and over. It was a very refreshing change, and it continues to keep me more amused than my female characters ever did.

-Wanted to be a Paladin, but didn't like my other option

Female blood elves are a terrible example of women to begin with. They're even MORE sexified than the other female races, and they perpetuate the "perfect woman" ideal. Why would I support an ideal I don't agree with or enjoy a walking pop culture reference that I absolutely loathe? I understand the male blood elves aren't much better, but the males rip on one of my own personal favorite fandoms (the anime fandom), tearing up the idea of the bishounen (or "pretty boy," for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term) which will always amuse me to no end.

I will continue to advocate my hate for the Napoleon Dynamite dance though. That's just dumb.

Oh, in addition, I didn't roll Alliance because all my friends roll Horde on a PvP server. So... yeah.

-Entertainment Factor.

I had to bring this up again. It's just damn entertaining to masquerade as a male, even if it's inadvertent. Most people assume I am male until I slip up in conversation, or they hear me in Vent. Sometimes, this can lead to hilarious conversations.

Such as the one where I mentioned my roommate was cooking dinner, and therefore she was awesome.

"What, you live with a girl? Is she your girlfriend?"

"No, no, she's just my friend; All three of us get along really well though,"

"Three of you? Does her boyfriend live with her?"

"Nah. Both my roommates are single. They're both really cool girls though,"

"YOU LIVE WITH TWO GIRLS?!"

"Yeah. They're pretty hot, too,"

Okay, so yeah, by the end I was totally intentionally jerking their chain, but it's funny how easily people jump to conclusions. I started going out of my way, eventually, to hide the fact I was female from guilds I was applying to until I appeared in Vent. I have a very soft, feminine voice, so at that point it becomes near-impossible to fake it.

Though I will always be eternally entertained that even while my guild application to Merciless stated my quite feminine name at the top, people still didn't figure out I was a girl until the first general guild meeting when I spoke up about paladin tanking. =3 It will forever be a fond memory.

-So why the name?

Ahh, yes, I didn't cover that one specifically, did I? I picked the name "Prettyboi" for two reasons. One, the name "Prettyboy" was taken already (lol), and two, I knew going into rolling a blood elf was entitling myself to be a walking stereotype. I knew hundreds upon thousands of people were going to be rolling blood elf paladins in particular. I could have tried to be different and come up with a creative name like I do with my other characters (Melna the Orc Warrior, for instance, who's named after a Dominic Deegan character; or Nishta, my Troll Priestess whose name simply screamed "troll" for me). Instead, I chose to run with the hole I was digging myself, and dig it a little deeper.

And you know, with how much fun I've had with it in the end, I have never, and doubt I will ever, regret it.

Incidentally, yes, I do know the connotation for having "boi" spelled with the i. For those of you that don't, it generally announces a level of ambiguity or even outright homosexuality. I'm fine with this; especially when I flirt with my male guildmates anyway, and even more so when it's in general chat in the middle of Shattrath or Orgrimmar.

I consistently wonder what people think about that. Either way, it leaves a goofy mischievous smile on my face, and isn't that all I need to make it worth it?

I hope this has shed some informative light on myself, as well as on possibly other females who roll male characters too. Next time you do find out there's a ZOMG GIRL on your server, treat them with the same level of respect (or hell, the same level of disrespect XD) you give your male players. I guarantee you that they'll appreciate it.

Prettyboi's Guide to Having a Tankadin (In Your Group)

(Crossposted at http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

This has been posted on the Blizzard forums, but because I had many wonderful replies over there, I went through and edited it a third time and feel it's ready to release again. I hope to post this over at my guild's website someday, but I'm waiting to do so until I get permission from either my Class Officer or from one of the higher ups. It's an interesting read, but do keep in mind that this is designed not for Tankadins themselves, but for other people who interact with Tankadins. It's basically a list of do's and don'ts and what you can do as your class/spec to best compliment your Tankadin.

If there are any continuing errors, please leave me a message and let me know! I'm always trying to improve what I've written, so it's good to hear from people. =)

Prepare for the wall of text right about now:

Prettyboi’s Guide to Having a Pally Tank (v3.0)

First off, I want to say I’m no expert, but I’ve learned quite a few things. I want to share my knowledge with everyone so that when I am in a group with other people, I don’t have to repeat or explain myself a billion times. And who knows, hopefully some day I won’t be the only active Pally tank in our guild. =) This will also be immensely helpful for if you snag a Pally tank in a run outside of the guild. Without further ado, here we go.

DPSers

To all DPSers, in particular off-spec Warriors, please remember that Paladins need time to generate aggro as much as any other tank. Yes, we are quick aggro generators, and you’ll likely have to wait a shorter amount of time. However, we also have spell hit to worry about, so if something gets resisted or missed, we fall behind. Wait for the aggro! Especially given the fact that we have much fewer ways to pull than other tanks (our only distance pull we can use on any mob bounces to two additional targets, which with crowd control being mandatory in some places, makes it difficult to consistently use). Paladins dealing with crowd control will generate MUCH less aggro since they’ll likely have to body-pull. For most pulls, let us get about 2-3k. For bosses, like most tanks, allow for 10k.

As well, ALWAYS watch your aggro generation. This should go without saying no matter what kind of tank you have, but this is especially important with Paladin tanks! We have Blessing of Salvation for a reason. We give it to you because it’s part of how we generate aggro; by slowing down your aggro generation. We have a need for both physical +hit and +spell hit, neither of which consistently comes on the gear given to us to tank (read: Warrior gear). Thus, it is likely we miss, get dodged/parried/blocked, or get resisted A LOT. Blessing of Salvation is like aggro generation for us, so if we have problems keeping up with you and you know this, just take the blessing. You’re helping your fellow players by lowering the chance that you pull aggro off us and kill yourself or wipe the rest of the group.

Single-target DPS

Marking in a paladin's group usually isn't necessary if you pay attention, and remember this: DPS order should 80% of the time be healers>dps casters>slow melee>fast melee. Exceptions being when a specific mob has a nasty debuff, spike damage, etc that needs to be taken care of first. Whoever is group leader should mark in those situations.

Crowd Control

In a similar vein as in addressed under the DPSers message, paladins have a much harder time dealing with crowd control, if crowd control is needed at all. If you are a CCer who can crowd control during combat, please do so after the paladin pulls. There’s no point in sheeping something if it’s gonna get hit with a shield. If you are a CCer who crowd controls before combat has started (looking at you Rogues out there), if it’s a large group, try to get the guy at the end. That way the Paladin can still use Avenger’s Shield and not hit the mob you CC’d.

Healers

While I’m not about to tell you healers how to do your job, if you have a full or near full mana bar after any encounter is absolutely wasted on a paladin tank. Just because we have good defense and don’t take a lot of damage does not mean you can stop healing us. Paladins, unlike Warriors or Druids, have a mana pool. Because we have to sacrifice a lot of our stats in favor of defense and particularly stamina, we have TINY mana pools. (Fully raid buffed, I currently have about 6k, and that’s likely only ever going to go DOWN.) Blizzard gave us this wonderful ability called Spiritual Attunement where we get a 10% return in mana from the amount we are healed by other characters. Therefore, a pally tank’s mana pool is only as big as his healer’s. We go through our mana in the blink of an eye (a typical rotation of abilities is Seal of Righteousness (~200 mana), Holy Shield (~220 mana), Consecration (~660 mana), Judgement (~180 mana), lather rinse and repeat. That’s approximately 1260 mana each rotation, which is roughly 8 seconds (the time it takes for Judgement’s cooldown to finish). This means that in less than 40 seconds, without heals, I would be entirely out of mana. For Kara, the amount of mana I use is much higher as I have more abilities (Exorcism, ~440 mana), and that gets added to the rotation. Bottom line, even if you see a pally tank at near full health, if their mana bar is low, toss them a little heal at least. The small amount we gain back can make the difference, even if we’re only missing a couple hundred points of health. Besides, shouldn’t we always be “topped off” anyway?

Other Tanks

Most of the tanks I have run with side-by-side have been druid tanks. And I tell you what, I love me my druid tanks. They’re there for me when there’s a fight I can’t do because of my lack of stam ( ;-; 2.3 patch, where are you?). We have much the same relationship as a Warrior MT with a Druid OT. I have OT’d with both warrior and druid MTs, and the results have always been the same; I can grab and keep my aggro just fine, and sometimes a little *too* well, accidentally pulling the aggro off the MT and onto myself.

Thus, in my opinion, Paladins make, by default of their abilities, a better MT than an OT, and I’ll elaborate on why. If a Pally tank is not tanking in a fight, he or she is being wasted. Paladin tanks, unlike Warriors or Druids, don’t have something else we can do without a full respec. We can heal, sure, but about as well as a shadow priest can. It becomes entirely gear dependent and we WILL run out of mana, no matter how good our gear is. DPSing is a laugh as a paladin. The Retribution tree needs work as it is, and a paladin tank is not going to be optimized for dealing damage, he is optimized for generating aggro (which are two very different things to a paladin).

It’s not that we’re “taking your job,” other tanks. We’re just competitively working in the same field. I do not feel that a Paladin tank is any better or any worse than a Druid or Warrior tank. If you have better gear than me, than likely, by default, you are a better choice than I am. And that’s fine. Either way, there are situations where you will be better for a job than I am, and I respect that. I just hope you respect that there are some jobs I am better for than you are as well. =) (I’d love to see any group in Kara that isn’t over-equipped where they lack a pally tank and the AOErs don’t die from the groups before and after Moroes.)

Tips and Tricks

There’s a few things from classes that Pally tanks like to see. Here they are separated by class. Some are no-brainers, but I tossed them in there anyway.

Mage

-Food and water. Pally tanks are the only tanks who need copious amounts of water, and boy howdy do we ever need it. I typically down water after almost every pull because of how small my mana pool is. Don’t be surprised if at the beginning of Kara you handed a pally tank two stacks of water and he asks you for more later.

-Arcane Intellect/Brilliance. Then we’ll pester you for water a little bit less. =)

-Polymorph after the pull. Addressed in the Crowd Control section, but I’d like to reiterate it as I’ve had problems with this one before. In addition, the further away you place your polymorph, the happier your pally tank will be. If we can still Consecrate, you’ve done your job exceptionally well. If we can’t, well, it’s not the most desired, but we’ll survive. =)

-Polymorph Casters or Ranged Attackers. We hate dealing with them anyway. =P If there is neither, pick the slower swinging warriors over the faster hitting ones.

-Counterspell Casters. We find it highly amusing as well as helpful with the casters come charging blindly into our Consecrate.

Shaman

-Air Totem. I found this one out on my own, but ZOMG does Air Totem rock! Any pally tank should gladly take Air Totem over Windfury Totem. It can double the amount of aggro we generate, or beyond that if your pally tank has low +spell damage to begin with (though admittedly, he shouldn’t). Any extra spell damage for a Pally tank is love.

-Windfury Totem. This is fine if we're in a raid group with nothing but other melee DPSers. I mean, then it just kinda makes perfect sense.

-Tremor Totem. If we are fighting something that fears at all, this is REQUIRED. Barring trinkets, a paladin's only way out of a fear is bubbling, and even when specc'd, that's once every four minutes (and it temporarily wipes aggro until we unbubble, so we try not to use it at all). If we don't have this, we're kind of boned, and I don't know about you, but I'm not terribly fond of armor bills.

Warrior

-Commanding Shout. I know this is a spec thing, but DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN are those extra hit points nice. Anything which increases the survivability of your paladin tank is obviously a huge boon to your group, be it a casual run or a raid.

-Accept Blessing of Salvation. If you are not OTing, ask for Salvation because YOU NEED IT. Warriors, no matter what spec they are, generate A LOT of aggro. I don’t care who you are; if you’re “watching your KTM,” you’re going to see a lot of down time where you’re not DPSing AT ALL because you’re generating aggro so fast. Suck it up and take Blessing of Salvation. As I say to all DPSers, if I give you Salvation, it’s a compliment; it means your DPS is so leet that I can’t keep up with you.

-No Stunning. Please don’t charge and stun. What you are doing is causing me to lose valuable aggro. Pally tanks gain a lot of their aggro by being hit, so cut it out! If you want to charge and stun, please go back to being a tank and not DPS.

Rogue

-Sap on the End. Stated in Crowd Control, but I felt the need to reiterate. Please please please please PLEASE always try to sap the END target of a group. If your tank is marking, this shouldn’t be a problem, but if for some reason he’s not, then this is a good rule of thumb.

-Accept Blessing of Salvation. Generally, I will give rogues the Blessing of Might they want. However, the MOMENT you pull more aggro than I do, you get Salvation. No ifs ands or buts about it. I know you want to do more damage; but overall, you will do more damage if you can have at it and unload on him without stopping yourself than you will by the extra attack power boost I’m giving you. Please stop whining about it when it’s only hurting your group when you die.

-No Stunning. I know it gets you combo points and happy fun-time damage, but you could be Eviscerating instead of Kidney Shotting. It hurts paladin aggro, and while it’s necessary to kick or stun some caster mobs, which is fine, just don’t stun in general, especially at the beginning of a pull.

Priest

-Silence Casters. This is for the Shadow Priests out there. Like the mage’s counterspell, we enjoy seeing the casters charge blindly in to kill themselves in our consecrate and by melee-ing us. It’s helpful as well as hilarious.

Paladin

-Stack Buffs. Another kind of “dur” statement, but talk over with your pally tank about what buffs they’ll be giving, and what buffs you’ll be giving. (Or install Pally Power which just kind of does it for you) My general rule of thumb is to let the Tank hand out Blessing of Kings and the other tailor to the needs of the raid. It just seems easier that way, especially since not all pallys besides Prot-specc’d pallys have Blessing of Kings and the first place. And everyone loves BoK.

-Judge Crusader. If you have the opportunity to judge, tack on another Crusader for us. It’ll increase the amount of aggro we generate, and even if you’re Holy, it’s a nice little boost at the beginning of a fight.

Warlock

-Imps. Imps are love. They give Pallys much-needed stamina. We love Imps, and we love buffing Imps. If we don’t, set your pally tank straight on that. Imps being buffed makes the Warlock better, and makes us better too.

-Succubae. Succubae are also love (in more ways than one, of course =D). We rather like having a backup plan if an extra mob decides to wander off. A pally tank will always prioritize keeping as many mobs on them as possible, but sometimes we can’t get ‘em all. Succubae eliminate that need, so they’re a very helpful addition.

-Fel Guards. TURN OFF THE TAUNT. We don’t need the competition between your pet and ourselves for who’s tanking. Paladin tanks get half their abilities from procs that only happen when we get hit. If we’re not being hit, we’re a lot less effective. In addition, watch your Cleaving; if a Tankadin’s already suffering the loss of not consecrating because of crowd control, then you shouldn’t be cleaving things either.

-Voidwalkers. See Fel Guards. You’re better off using something else, though I have less problems with Voidwalkers.

-Fel Hunters. I like these guys. They take care of the mages so that they run stupidly at the group and I can begin to consecrate and have them beat the crap out of themselves by wailing on me. Fel Hunters are good in my book, though I rarely see them used other than in PVP. Really, I wouldn’t mind seeing more Fel Hunters around.

Hunter

-Trap far back. This is also something your tank needs to pay attention to, obviously, but you also should do your part. The further away you trap, the better off your pally tank is. We like to use Consecration. It is part of our general rotation of aggro-generating abilities, like Sunder Armor is to a warrior. I’m more than willing to admit this is a two way street, though. We need to be paying as much attention as you do.

-Misdirect. I love Misdirect. Any possible chance you can Misdirect onto me, do it. Adding aggro to a paladin’s plate is a welcome thing. We never mind another mob beating on us, as it only makes our abilities proc more frequently, and thus, make us harder to kill.

-Pull the Clean Mobs. Meaning, go after and trap the mobs which either were not a target of Avenger’s Shield, or were missed by Avenger’s Shield. A good idea as to which ones were missed are the ones that are charging full speed, since they didn’t get slowed.

-Pets. TURN OFF GROWL. In the same vein as the Warlock’s Fel Guard, we appreciate being hit and being able to, you know, do our job. Please don’t make us have to compete with your pet. It’s just dumb.

Druid

-Insect Swarm. If you want to help your Pally tank take less damage against a nasty hard-hitting mob or boss, this is your best choice. Not that we dislike your HoT’s either.

General Reminders

-Run TO the Tank. We won’t bite you, we’re aiming for the mob that’s making you run away like a little girl anyway. Dragging it further away from us is only going to get you killed.

I hope you have found this guide useful and informative. I understand that there are some no-brainer tips and comments in here. For those of you who note they are such, obviously you’re already a smart player and I didn’t need to tell you that to begin with. For those of you that didn’t know some of this, then you’ve learned something new! And remember; all this doesn’t only apply to Paladin tanks, but to other tanks as well. Treat your tank nice, and you survive! Not a hard concept really.

Now, who wants to join me in Shattered Halls? =)

Breakin' It In: A Short History

(Crossposted at http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

First off, I want to say hello to everyone who finds their way here. I hope you find some interesting information here that gets you to keep coming, and I hope you're willing to respond to some of the things I post, give me positive feedback, and help me become a better player. And I hope in return I can give you a different point of view and give you some different advice than you hear elsewhere that is neither better nor worse than others, but simply from another perspective.

Now that I've finished all that cheesey introduction stuff, let's get started. I promised this first post would be a short history as to where I'm at now, so here we go.

I started playing World of Warcraft sometime early in 2005. A friend of mine played with all his buddies on some server which name is now lost to me. It was a general server, and they played Horde. Finally convinced that I should join in the fun, I rolled an Undead Mage named Teristya.

I've always been big on the spellcasters, at least in MMOs. I came from the world of Shadowbane, where I played an Aelfborne (read: Half-elf) Summoner (read: Sorceress; no, they don't actually summon creatures), and really had some fun with it when my Dad started playing with me. He rolled a Dwarf Decon (battle priest) and we had many a fun time blasting others into oblivion.

I figured I'd try to emulate the same thing when I came over to WoW. However, stuff didn't last long for me. I tired of leveling by myself, since my friend and his buddies were in the 30-40's range and only increasing the gap day-by-day, and eventually they all quit the game, leaving me entirely alone. I was going to give up WoW too, but by this time my Dad had joined in as well as a lot of friends from home, so instead I rolled alliance on their server. My dad, after all, wanted to re-make his dwarf character. I ended up rolling both a Dwarf Paladin and a Gnome Warlock to futz around with on the Hyjal server.

I ended up having the same symptom, though. All my friend leveled quicker than I did, and my dad lost interest with it much quicker since I was away at college and we couldn't play side-by-side like we used to with Shadowbane. By this time (only about 6 months later than when I started, really), though, I'd made a lot of new friends at college, and found out they not only all played WoW, but had their own guild, too! So, I moved to my now-home of Mug'Thol, and rolled what they asked me to; an orc warrior by the name of Melna.

They asked me to roll a warrior because they said they needed an end-game tank. Okay, guess I'll go level that. I was having a lot of fun with it, but I was also working hard at school and trying to get good grades. Naturally, I ended up taking a couple of long breaks from WoW, mostly around mid-terms and finals. I was only in my 30's when the guild (Havok) came to me and asked me to re-roll a priest. "You're not that high anyway, and we could really use a healer," they said. "Well, okay. Sounds interesting, I've never played a healer," were my thoughts, and so the next character became Nishta, a troll priestess.

I was leveling my priestess at a much slower pace; after all, she didn't really have the firepower to grind well. I was only 22 when suddenly Burning Crusade was looming around the corner. Immediately my guild ran back to me, declaring, "Burning Crusade is coming out! We're going to need some paladins. You're not that high level yet, do you want to reroll?" I rolled my eyes, but agreed anyway. 'Why not?' I thought. 'I liked being a warrior, I liked being a priest, isn't a paladin just the best of both worlds?'

Despite my initial irritation with being asked to roll a character a third time, I got over it rather quickly. One of my newer friends, both in WoW and at college, who we shall call Kaitou, camped out with me at a Gamestop for our copies of Burning Crusade. I remember being one of three women at the release; and the only one who was actually buying a copy of the game for herself and not her boyfriend or son. I took an odd level of pride in that; I'm a professionally trained actor, I take pride in a lot of silly things. =P

As soon as we got back to my friend's place, I immediately rolled my paladin. I had been talking to Kaitou about it and had definitively decided to roll a male Blood Elf paladin. My reasoning had been "Well, hey, if all you guys can roll females so that you 'have something to look at,' then why can't I?" I wanted to name him as stereotypically objectified as possible. Prettyboy was already taken by an Undead Priest on our server, so Prettyboi it became.

I immediately loved the entire Silvermoon City area and the 1-20 Blood Elf leveling areas. After having been through The Barrens and Durotar three full times, it was a nice change of pace. I was also enjoying a lot of the more creative quests. Learning how to master your mana tap racial ability, for instance. I was actually one of the highest level Horde paladins on our server for a while... basically until I decided it was late enough and had to go to sleep. I would never be close to that high spot ever again.

Levelling went slowly. It took me about two-thirds a year to reach 70. In fact, I only reached 70 in August of this year. But I was still proud of myself. Prettyboi had become the single character I'd stuck with, the single character I never lost interest in, and the single character everyone always wanted in a party. It was nice having the utility of both a healer and a tank, though in all honesty, I truly enjoyed tanking far more than I ever would healing. As I breached 50 and plowed through 60, I had realized this, and decided that I was going to dedicate my efforts to becoming a tank. I had no idea at the time how difficult it would be or how few people on my server in particular hated the idea of a paladin tank, thinking them weak or even entirely useless.

Despite the hardships that were coming, I still don't ever regret my decision.

By the time I had reached Outlands, my former guild, Havok, had fallen apart. Our guild leader had grown out of WoW and was close to graduation, and no one was willing to step up to take over the job. We bid him good luck and farewell, and Havok disbanded. It was a shame; we were actually one of the most advanced guilds on our server for a short time... It would have been nice to have been a part of that.

Finding myself guild-less and almost 70, I needed to figure out what I was going to do with myself. Kaitou's former guild (he hadn't been in Havok with me) had also disbanded, so we were both kind of floating around with no direction other than getting me to 70. While tanking through a run of Slave Pens, the group I was with was massively impressed with my skills, and invited me to their guild, Sinister Sacrament. They seemed like nice enough and enjoyable people, and I'd had a lot of fun jerking their chain around on being male (they honestly had no idea; it was rather amusing, at least to me), so I joined up. I got Kaitou an invitation shortly later, and just before I hit 70, they invited everyone to go Zul'Gurub to test out their raiding skills.

Unfortunately, it didn't really go well.

See, Kaitou was actually the only person who had actually DONE Zul'Gurub. No one in the raid, in particular the raid leader, would listen to him about it. A group of 15 67-70's WIPED in Zul'Gurub because of the lack of organization and other general stupidity.

I did rather enjoy /gquitting the next day, though. Kaitou stuck around about 5 minutes after I caps locked announced "I'M A GIRL!" and /gquit. Apparently the responses were hilarious.

Kaitou and I had already found a new guild when we quit Sinister Sacrament. A lot of his buddies from his old guild had reformed into a newer one, and thus, we both applied and got accepted into Merciless. I am proud that I am still a member of Merciless. =) We are a primarily raiding guild that, at this time, is just starting SSC, and I hope some day I can march beside my fellow guildmates into these high-end 25-mans.

My next hurdle, which I have made a lot of progress in, is being able to stay a Tankadin through and through. If I never have to respec Holy... Then I might be a server first in that regard. To my knowledge, I don't know of another dedicated Tankadin on Mug'Thol. Please, if you know one or are one, contact me. I want to learn from you. I want the advice.

If not... Well, I hope I can be an inspiration to other future Tankadins on my server. Or other future Tankadins in general. I've been learning as much as I can, and I'll be relaying that knowledge here.

I still have a lot of history and stories to tell. But those are for another day. I hope you guys stick around. I think I'm going to enjoy doing this.

**EDIT** Edited Zul'Farrak to Zul'Gurub because I mixed up my names. But yes, it would have been much funnier if it had actually been Zul'Farrak. XD Also fixed a couple inconsistencies in statements. Now they're accurate and correct.