61 - 69 A couple of days in Outlands

Logging in after a 6 month hiatus is a bit jarring, more so when the talent trees have been overhauled. Nothing's quite where you left it, and in the case of the Paladin I'd been leveling, I didn't really know what I was doing to start out with, and was now having a classic "What do all these buttons do?" moment. So, after an hour of fiddling with my UI, looking up abilities, and just general housecleaning I realize I've left my Level 61 in Dalaran, where there are no longer any portals, essentially leaving myself high and dry in the middle of content about 13 or so levels higher than I can deal with. Good news: Flight Points in Northrend now automatically include Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord and Dalaran. After making a guess at a viable tanking spec, it's off to Hellfire to see how it works. Worked on some quests, grinded on skinning, and kept messing with what I was doing until I found something that seemed fairly effective. Now, I did not sort out the various issues with which damage reduction abilities locked out which others, as I remember from Wrath that this was a bit of a headache to keep track of. So with no knowledge of Holy Power or how it worked, and with only Divine Protection as an emergency button, I quested long enough to get s decent helm, as I had previously still been wearing a mail helm from before I was 40, and queued for a random Burning Crusade dungeon, as a tank.

Immediately Ramps came up and I relaxed, I have essentially mastered this particular instance. I leveled most of 60-65 in this dungeon on a few characters, and started farming at about level 70, to say I've finished it hundreds of times is an understatement. My "Area of Effect", or AOE enemy management is not as effective as I remember from Wrath. This is almost surely related to the fact that I know next to nothing about the class's current mechanics, and am more or less of the impression that you drop Consecrate and mash a couple of other buttons, apply Divine Protection whenever you think things are a little hairy. First change I noted, was Divine Protection's 1 minute cooldown, I got pretty liberal with this. Now, in a reversal of the common circumstance, I know very little about the Paladin class, but have well-trained eyes and reflexes for tanking, so I very seldom let a "Mobile Enemy",or a "mob", wander around uncontrolled, even if my tool selection style is essentially a 4 year old playing Street Fighter's button mashing. Several nice pieces drop for me, and rolls on actual tanking gear are uncontested. The groups I interact with are all pleasant and reasonably effective, this is certainly not the Random Dungeon Finder experience I remember and I'm glad for it. Unfortunately I didn't count, but it seems like I ranged from 6 - 10 instances per level, 10 or maybe even as many as 12 being 67 to 68. The extras were likely because I kept getting low-level groups and I think all 12 of those runs were in Blood Furnace. Upon reaching 68, I was thrilled to discover that I could queue for a specific Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) instance, Utgarde Keep. I was initially concerned. I've previously tried to tank instances where the Bosses are 4 levels higher than me, and discovered the joy of crushing blows, which is essentially the tank dying in one hit, the healer looking around in confusion, and everyone eventually walking back from the nearest graveyard. I was also not in BC heroic gear, or even good BC gear, and I had occasional threat problems anyway. If I picked up some decent level 70 Damage Dealers (abreviated DPS, for no real good reason) I was likely to have serious threat issues. So keeping in mind I thought my survivability and threat were likely weak I queued for Utgarde Keep, still not looking into this Holy Power thing or how Divine Shield or Lay on Hands worked. Well long story short, I continued my face-rolling success story, sadly getting compliments from my companions, most of whom seem convinced that I was much better than most of the tanks they had previously instanced with.

Well, I've started in on reform from being "bad." I've looked up all my relevant abilities, and even started reading a really well put together guide. I love guides at the beginning of an expansion, they're remarkably clear and applicable, not out-dated or semi-corrected from the various things Blizzard has told us that have changed. I've also re-worked my action bars, and placed the things the guide mentioned as being important in easy reach.

Next Post, Paladin tanking to Level in Northrend. Also upcoming is a short guide to Shields while leveling.

WOW blogs and why we need another ...

I have had an itch to begin blogging about my in-game experience in World of Warcraft for a while now. Various heated discussions have ended in a meaningful conclusions and ought to be saved for posterity, or at least somewhere I can refer to them again. So much easier when wearing out the same argument for the umpteenth time to have notes from the previous iterations.

I started playing WOW as a result of Blizzard's recruit-a-friend campaign, and my brother's prolonged insistence. One day he showed up with a computer and said that my account was paid for for the next couple of months. He said he wanted to level some Alts, whatever those were.

Initially we set our cell-phones on speaker, logged in together and discussed the game endlessly while we played. I had a lot more questions than he had answers, but it passed the time. Honestly the leveling process bored me to tears. Since I had someone to talk to, someone whom handily had a solid handle on the leveling process, as well as the layout of the rather extensive world, I didn't get bored and find something else to do in those early weeks. His paladin and my rogue traveled and leveled extensively, having a goal of "4 levels a night" which we not only most often met, but managed to do a few other odds and ends while we were at it.

Our second set of "toons" set the stage for my obsession. He was playing a warlock, and I was trying out a warrior. Unlike the previous rogue/paladin combination, we now had no inbuilt healing and progress were often halted to recover health. He took up first-aid and I cooking, and we died ... a lot. A sad situation wherein while I took much smaller amounts of damage due to superior armor, he drew much more ire, especially at range, we'd get a few extra monsters, and he'd promptly die and I would die eventually but much more slowly. We'd be several minutes returning to our bodies, eating and bandaging. Invariably we discussed how if we could just get them to attack me, while they were slowly tearing me apart, he could stand back and pick them off. The trick being, to get them to keep attacking me, even when he was doing the Lion's Share of the damage.

This is how I discovered my passion for being a tank.