And now, on with the show!

So the first couple posts were sorta background. This one should lead into current events.

A pally Tank.... Tankadin. Maybe one of the more difficult classes to manage from a game mechanics perspective. Very gear dependant. A high need to balance many attributes and skills For example, with a hunter, you can always add more AGI and do no wrong, but a good Tankadin needs a balance of good DEF, STA and Spell Damage at a minimum. In raids, she can, um, tank, and after that, well.... a pally tank DPS's like an anemic toddler and heals like Kevorkian. Most other classes can fill a couple roles in a raid, but pallys don't really have that luxury.

So why on earth would I want to play one? Just to see if I can. After 2.5 years of WoW, the challenge is the game to me, that and the social aspects that come from being in a great guild.

I leveled as a Ret pally just to be able to deal a little damage, but when I hit 70, specced for Tanking and started doing the quests to get into Kara (still needed attunment then) Gathered a little gear, and marched into Kara as a vetaran of many raids..... and didn't have a clue what to do. Being a melee class, and especially a Pally tank whose ability to aggro a mob depends on threat generation by means other than raw white DPS was a far cry from running a shammy and staying back hurling boltz. This was work! But I learned.

Finally came my first true tanking gig as a MT in Kara. I was worried, nervous. I didn't want to screw up and look like a bigger noob than usual. A healer/dps can goof and more often as not, it can go unnoticed and be recovered from. Then a MT bones it up, its usually pretty obvious as the raid is running back from the graveyard.... But the chick must spread her wings and learn to fly. So there he was, Attumen. I will assume that you, dear Reader, know the fight well. It's not hard and on that night, it wasn;t either. But what did I get as a memento of my first tanking? He dropped his Warhorses Reins! First time I had ever seen an epic mount in a raid. Naturally everyone rolled. When i did, I saw... Amineh rolls a 97(1-100). I was like...OMG! I was hooting and hollering so much my roommate came in to see if I had hurt myself. Not a bad start to raiding career!

More soon.....