A new tank is born
So... World of Warcraft stuff... if you don't care, don't read.
So after getting home from dinner out with family and getting the kids washed and into bed, I decided to follow up on a decision I made a few days prior. I was going to try my hand at tanking. A serious try. I had toyed with the idea before, and tanked a time or two leveling up or what-not, but I'd never really committed much to it.
So I set to work on finishing up a (very respectable!) entry level set of tank gear and respecced Katriah, my Draenei paladin, as protection. I downloaded a taunt mod to help me and late last night got 4 other guildies to go with me in the lead into a random heroic.
We drew Utgarde Pinnacle, which was fine. It's not terribly difficult and I know it really well even though I'd never tanked it.
My overall impression of my performance was: "dreadful, but considering my total lack of tanking experience, acceptable." It was probably about the worst set-up for a new tank... my 3 DPS were well-geared melee meaning it was a lot easier for them to pull aggro off of me. And pull aggro they did. Sashayla less so than Nythe, and Nythe less so than Sangue, who either couldn't help herself or just didn't care she was. And honestly we were killing stuff so fast since we overgear the content that it didn't really matter. Our healer, Kytryna, apparently had no problems healing me, nor any of the DPS through it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.
Aside from aggro issues I spent far too much time poorly managing my mana and cursing myself for not remembering to Divine Plea, far too much time looking at my action bar and getting the hang of the rotation, mis-clicking on my taunt add-on because I don't have it ingrained which click does what, and not enough time looking up at my screen at what mob I was attacking and evaluating if it was the mob I SHOULD be focusing on.
I felt I handled Skadi well. I have had tanks not pick him up immediately and it really sucks to be beat on by him when you're the healer. So I was quick with the Hand of Reckoning (taunt) and picked him up straightaway. When he whirlwinded I got away and pulled him back as I should (but perhaps a bit too quickly).
A bad habit I need to drop is I have to move Exorcism off my main castbar. As retribution I am used to that being almost always an instant spell (due to art of war), but it definitely isn't when you're protection!
Yet at the end of it, everyone said I did fine/great/no problems, which is indicative of how nice my guildies are. I'm sure I did do fine. I held aggro as best I could and nobody died. The fact that everyone thought I did fine yet I felt I did dreadful is probably a clue that I have the right mindset to be a tank: self-critical and always looking for ways to improve.
This weekend I will probably do some normal level 80 dungeons to practice, and do heroics when I can with guildies. Once I feel more comfortable with my gear level and my ability to handle monster dpser's, then maybe I'll consider some pugs.
OH! I almost forgot... I was rewarded for my efforts with the Red Sword of Courage, a very nice tanking weapon (which you can see on Katriah's character page)!
So after getting home from dinner out with family and getting the kids washed and into bed, I decided to follow up on a decision I made a few days prior. I was going to try my hand at tanking. A serious try. I had toyed with the idea before, and tanked a time or two leveling up or what-not, but I'd never really committed much to it.
So I set to work on finishing up a (very respectable!) entry level set of tank gear and respecced Katriah, my Draenei paladin, as protection. I downloaded a taunt mod to help me and late last night got 4 other guildies to go with me in the lead into a random heroic.
We drew Utgarde Pinnacle, which was fine. It's not terribly difficult and I know it really well even though I'd never tanked it.
My overall impression of my performance was: "dreadful, but considering my total lack of tanking experience, acceptable." It was probably about the worst set-up for a new tank... my 3 DPS were well-geared melee meaning it was a lot easier for them to pull aggro off of me. And pull aggro they did. Sashayla less so than Nythe, and Nythe less so than Sangue, who either couldn't help herself or just didn't care she was. And honestly we were killing stuff so fast since we overgear the content that it didn't really matter. Our healer, Kytryna, apparently had no problems healing me, nor any of the DPS through it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.
Aside from aggro issues I spent far too much time poorly managing my mana and cursing myself for not remembering to Divine Plea, far too much time looking at my action bar and getting the hang of the rotation, mis-clicking on my taunt add-on because I don't have it ingrained which click does what, and not enough time looking up at my screen at what mob I was attacking and evaluating if it was the mob I SHOULD be focusing on.
I felt I handled Skadi well. I have had tanks not pick him up immediately and it really sucks to be beat on by him when you're the healer. So I was quick with the Hand of Reckoning (taunt) and picked him up straightaway. When he whirlwinded I got away and pulled him back as I should (but perhaps a bit too quickly).
A bad habit I need to drop is I have to move Exorcism off my main castbar. As retribution I am used to that being almost always an instant spell (due to art of war), but it definitely isn't when you're protection!
Yet at the end of it, everyone said I did fine/great/no problems, which is indicative of how nice my guildies are. I'm sure I did do fine. I held aggro as best I could and nobody died. The fact that everyone thought I did fine yet I felt I did dreadful is probably a clue that I have the right mindset to be a tank: self-critical and always looking for ways to improve.
This weekend I will probably do some normal level 80 dungeons to practice, and do heroics when I can with guildies. Once I feel more comfortable with my gear level and my ability to handle monster dpser's, then maybe I'll consider some pugs.
OH! I almost forgot... I was rewarded for my efforts with the Red Sword of Courage, a very nice tanking weapon (which you can see on Katriah's character page)!