Things I learned from Rolling a Tankadin.

So I'm trying to sleep and I was thinking about my newest side project (everything in wow is some form of side project for me. Go figure.)

Namely, my protection paladin that I rolled to learn how to pally tank. She's currently sitting at 43, and I've learned many things from this.


Firstly, when you hit the magical level 15 and go into your first ever random dungeon you have a 50-50 shot of being tossed into the Dead Mines or Ragefire Chasm. Me being Horde meant I know RFC in my sleep. My first dungeon was Dead Mines. FML.  What I really remember about this run is the level 22 mage in heirloom gear bragging about his dps and who decided he was going to pull for me. The level 15 paladin.

This brings me to the first important thing any newbie tank should remember. YOU are the tank. Not the dps. Not the dps in heirloom gear or the healer. YOU are the tank, so remember to tell yourself that as the tank this is YOUR run.  And make it so.

When the mage and the warrior tried to gang up on me and heap more abuse at me for being a "fail tank" I lol'd at them and let them pull the boss. I sat down and chilled out as they bitched and moaned. Oh I was furious, because damnnit let me learn my job! They downed the boss (it was sloppy) and a nice shield dropped. I won it, as a nice slap in the face to the dps (namely the warrior) that rolled against me. Finally they settled down enough to let me do my job. At the end of the run i made sure to /ignore both the warrior and mage who had made my run pure hell.

Second important thing for newbie tanks. /ignore the assholes. When you do that you won't be grouped with them again. I'm not kidding it's the best thing to be able to do that and never see them ever again. Normally I just shrug and go about my business and rarely ignore people. But I've learned that it's not worth the mental agony of dealing with some of the really awful people. I'm looking at you 90% of Mal'ganis.

The next thing I've learned is that it's okay to go at your own pace. You will probably get dps that want you to go faster. Ignore them. It's okay to tell them that if they yank it they spank it. If you're comfortable with your key binds you can go ahead and move fast. Set the healer to focus and run in. Check the healer's mana, and if they have about 80% mana you should be able to pull more with out causing a disaster. It's really easy to heal at the lower levels so don't worry too much.

And one of the other things i've learned is that Tanking slowly starts to get a little bit harder as you level. At about oh 25 it slowly starts to ramp up in difficulty. More dps get aoes, your dps get more high agro moves, your healer's heals start to cost more and ect. It's important to keep in mind that wow does get a bit harder as you level. It's supposed to. Keep moving forward and remember It's YOUR run, the mobs are YOUR mobs to hit first, and the ignore tool is a thing of beauty.

Good luck fellow Newbie tanks.