Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Warrior tanking is fun first and foremost.

As a warrior tank, I think I'm defying convention at the moment. In vanilla WoW, Warriors were ubiquitous with tanking, but these days we've seen our fair share of nerfs to the point that we've dropped down on the list and are much less popular as tanks. It's not to say we're not viable, the content out now can be tanked by a Warrior all the way through ICC in my opinion, but viable is not necessarily optimal.

I do believe end game has often been skewed toward the idea of paladin tanks. In Vanilla it was undead in the Plaguelands, though Pallies weren't totally viable as tanks then and lacked a lot of what symbolizes the class today. In TBC Pallies hit their stride, and the place was full of demons. Now in Wrath, it's back to the undead; that alone gives Paladins an inherent advantage.

I have a paladin tank, and I must admit, it's a threat machine. It can survive wipes that would kill other tanks due to inherent self healing. It's a powerful tank, the Paladin. But it's not the end all. The Warrior has more varied tools at his disposal, more utilities for snap aggro, and (this part is subjective) is more fun.

On my paladin I find myself falling asleep behind the wheel. I don't react as quickly to emergency situations, partly because holding threat is so easy once you have it, but also because it's generally easier and I take that for granted. On my Warrior I'm actively driving, so to speak, fighting tooth and nail for threat, and the general feeling is much more visceral. On my warrior I'm not generating threat and surviving. I'm controlling the fight and winning.

My warrior has no light behind him, he's just a dude with a sword(or axe) and a shield and ready to kill something to protect something. That's warrior tanking to me. I'm here to make them mad and make them die, and I love doing it.

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