Paladin tanking: A first look!

I tanked an instance for the first time since switching to Protection spec and it was... incredible! The last time I tanked an instance was Zul'farrak, and back then I was Retribution. Granted, I had some things to help me generate threat that I don't have now (Sanctity Aura and actually Vengeance helped too... haha) but the better Righteous Fury was really helpful.

Paladins are just... wow. I think I had the hunter trap twice, and only in Blood Furnace (we did Ramparts followed by Blood Furnace since Ramparts only lasted about 40 minutes). The only time I did have her trap was on some of those nasty felguard annihilator pulls at the end since I couldn't really tank them.

My pally is still a bit undergeared (a bit? I just replaced Triune Amulet with a BoE green that dropped in the instance last night) so I think I may have given our healer a run for her money sometimes, aoe tanking everything... it was great though. In both instances we only had 1 wipe (accidentally got two groups somehow) and only a couple of deaths. The only frustrating thing is if I went OOM during a pull, it became very difficult to get threat back, and of course Reckoning was no help at all with Seal/Judgment of Wisdom because I wasn't being hit anymore T_T Gotta learn to carry mana potions!

Looking forward to getting more tanking gear so I feel like a bit less of a mana hog on the healer... and definitely looking forward to tanking more instances. Maybe this is one character I can feel comfortable tanking with pugs in the group! I didn't even have to use salvation last night either so that was a huge help. People pulled aggro sometimes but it was usually in a big group where I have having some trouble targetting... I'll get used to it!

Shiawase, Blood Elf Paladin

Shiawase is my first horde character to reach 40 and my first to hit 60. (Previously I'd also had a tauren druid that I leveled up to 29, but I found myself wanting something different.) That also makes her my 7th character to hit 60 overall (after a hunter, mage, two priests, a warrior, and a druid).

At the time of writing this, Shiawase is currently level 61 and Protection spec. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stay Protection at 70 - Paladin tanking is a blast and, to me at least, much less stressful than warrior tanking.

I was Retribution with Shiawase up until level 50 - then Crusader Strike felt more like a mana hog and a Bad Thing rather than something good. I'm sure it's great if you really know how to use it, but I just felt my mana going down the drain and my downtime skyrocketing, and I was having a hard time resisting the temptation to use it - I mean, I spent a damn talent point on it after all. So I went to Protection and since then have been having a lot of fun (except for one of those scarlet camps in the Plaguelands... damn casters and healers).

Looking forward to tanking my first Outland instance soon! I always heard about how boring leveling a paladin was, but I haven't been bored since level 35. The worst part for me was about 30-34, and my gear was horribly outdated back then. I haven't found that is a trend though, because I also leveled another paladin to 35 in the past (Asuka, a holy paladin on Mannoroth). I leveled her as Holy and had fun the whole way, but also have kept fairly updated gear - at least a good weapon.