I got some very positive feedback on last week’s post, especially from female tanks, so I am very happy to continue this week. Guild tank number 2 I would like to introduce to you is Shiawase. Her main is an Arms warrior, so she’s very familiar with my own class, but she’s also an excellent paladin tank. She’s also one of the raid leaders of our sister guild on alliance side on our realm Bronzebeard, and an all around awesome person I am happy to call my friend. Now, paladins are somewhat the…hm, arch-nemesis of warriors in some respects, as they are so strong in all the areas that warriors are weaker. I have certainly done my share of whining when tanking alongside a paladin, because it can get frustrating. But ultimately, we’re one team, we tank, we rock the house. Enough of my ramblings, I shall let the belf take over my blog now. 
The first time I walked into a raid to tank was in the days of vanilla WoW, for Zul’Gurub. I was tanking the snake boss on my warrior… and… it was awesome! I had so much fun taking the hits instead of dishing them out for once, and needing to use my abilities to keep the boss’ attention on me and to stay alive was pleasantly different!
Now, that wasn’t actually my entrance into tanking as a main spec, but that feeling stayed by me and it was something I wanted to experience again. That didn’t come until months later, well into The Burning Crusade. I told myself I needed to finally make a horde character that I didn’t abandon at level 20 and see what life was like on that side of the fence.
Today, that character is Shiawase, my blood elf paladin. At a glance, you wouldn’t think that she could hold up against a boss like Onyxia. She’s so tiny! Surely the dragon could just eat her? Thankfully, Shiawase has holy magic on her side. At least, that’s how I explain it.
What I enjoy so much as a paladin in a raid is that tanking doesn’t have to be my only job. I have a wide variety of abilities that are useful in particular situations – many of which come up regularly over the duration of a raid. Hand of Salvation for that Arms Warrior (because, bless their aggro-loving souls, they have no threat drop short of death); Lay on Hands the other tank when her health drops frighteningly low during an enrage; Blessing of Protection on that healer that attracted a couple too many adds.
Something I enjoy is feeling like my character is useful. I leveled up a druid in vanilla WoW so I could help heal when we were low on healers. I play an Arms warrior that gives some useful physical damage buffs (bonus: more fun to play than Fury (imo haha)). My paladin offers tanking to a guild that needs it – but with it I also have an arsenal of abilities that are unique to paladins that I can use to help my raid and maybe even save it from a wipe.
While tanking… I can multitask. That’s pretty awesome! It isn’t only related to raiding either… while doing heroics, I can easily tab out and chat in AIM since I have so much AoE threat I’ll probably never lose aggro…
…okay actually I’m sort of kidding on that last one.
But seriously, heroics on my paladin are a breeze, and that makes them fun. I have a warrior and her offspec is Protection, but you pretty much have to pay me (or be my sister and guilt me) to tank a pug on her. Just thinking about it makes me all stressed out and we’re not even at the point yet where none of the DPS are bothering to assist. My paladin takes the stress factor away. I’m consecrating, Hammer of the Righteous-ing, and Seal of Vengeance-ing myself to the second spot (well, sometimes the first) on the damage meters most of the time and I enjoy it because staying on top of threat doesn’t feel like a chore.
I originally leveled Shiawase to see what the Horde thing was all about. I decided I wanted to try out tanking. At level 80 I bounced between three specs, had rubbish gear for all of them, and didn’t know what to do with myself until finally I said to myself, “Hey you know, my guild needs tanks and you are halfway there. You liked this in the last expansion. Let’s do this thing.” I haven’t looked back since. It’s a good thing that Shiawase has that holy magic to protect her slight form from being immediately gobbled up by a dragon, because I intend to have her on the front lines, tanking the biggest and baddest bosses, for as long as I am playing World of Warcraft!
I think I’ve browsed through this blog at least 10 times in the past without stopping to comment.
I thought the “Tank Like a Girl” title was cute for a blog, but the series of posts from female tanks is more than just cute. It’s a really interesting perspective to hear from. For whatever social pre-programmed reasons, most girls tend to be healers, some DPS, and fewer still tanks.
I’d love to hear more on what made them start tanking in the first place!
.-= Ceralyn´s last blog ..On the Arrangement of Pixels: Mixing It Up =-.
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Kadomi Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Yay, thanks for finally commenting then. Glad you enjoy the series, I enjoy reading the guest posts myself, and posting them. I get to tank with some cool people.
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Lyftsceaða Reply:
April 16th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Ho hum… I started out as what most people imagine is the “typical girl”: a NE druid chosen because I liked the animal forms, casting from a distance was less in-your-face violent, and, yes, healing appealed to me. Now my little druid, Lyftsceaða, is a L80 bird with her own optional tree form. Unlike most DPSers with their fixation on maximising damage, my rotation is designed bring down the mob while keeping it out of melee range… I can’t bear her getting hurt. (Yes, I do know that pixels don’t bruise but I just can’t quite get over electron pain!)
Despite all this queasiness, I have to admit to having an alt: a L61 warrior! I know it doesn’t make much sense what with my previous aversion to taking a bashing. So why did I decide to roll a warrior? The reason was simply I was sick of getting squished all the time. My druid wasn’t a moonkin then and at that time roots only worked in the open – surviving as a humanoid caster was next to impossible. I can remember the wonderful feeling of carelessly charging mobs three levels higher than my new NE warrior confident that they were going down before I did… killing Oakenscowl, collecting the Relics of Awakening, fulfilling Tharnariun’s Hope — all of them could be done without planning, positioning, careful selective pulling, popping pots, and the ultimate manoever…running away!
Funnily enough, as time has gone on and my baby warrior has ascended to Outland, she has become more feminine. Originally spec’ed in Arms she was just plain smash and bash, now Jellybaby is a protection warrior – taking the pain so that others can survive. She even uses Healbot – even if it is not really for healing – but with one eye on Omen, she can see when the healer or a DPS is gathering threat and, with a single click, cast Vigilance and siphon off the threat.
So, you wanted to know what made this girl roll a warrior? It was the ability to survive a drubbing, pure and simple. Finding that she could also protect and care was what took her from L35 to 61 and hopefully beyond.
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I really like this series too. I got burned out on tanking as a bear in BC but maybe I just need to try it on another class. I rolled a pally during BC and hated leveling it but started a new one recently and class changes and the PUG finder have made leveling her as a tank pretty easy so far. I like tanking but hate the stress. Sounds like Pally tank is the way to go!
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Back in January, when I decided to make my first alt in two years of playing, I decided I’d try a Tank class; so I could experience a different aspect of the game than I did on my Hunter.
I debated at length with myself whether I should roll a Paladin or a Death Knight. I ultimately chose the Death Knight, and while I think now that that was absolutely the better of the two choices (and not for the obvious reason, either), I will always and forever have a very soft spot for Paladin Tanks.
It goes back to TBC. “A Paladin Tank? You mean, I don’t have to chain trap? I can just shoot stuff? Thank you!”
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I am looking forward to the death knight tank post as much as I have enjoyed the druid and the paladin. I personally play a paladin tank and with all of the changes going on have recently tried to entice my wife into playing a tanking class. She originally was thinking “well maybe a bear cause I can off spec resto”. My response “no no no, play a pally, you’ll LOVE it!” and now my priest (something I’ve never gotten past 20) and her pally are rolling through RDF’s and she is getting a taste, I am looking forward to seeing how she takes on things after the 20′s, she’s doing great so far!
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Kadomi,
Don’t be too hard on yourself on Warriors vs Pallies. I switched to from Warrior to Pally tanking 9 months ago when I moved from the US to EU servers.
While I love my Pally for AoE damage, easy Heroics, all-round usefulness, and a fun rotation. However I reeeaaallllly miss Charge, Spell Reflect, etc. I feel completely helpless against casters having so few interupts and miss my mobility.
Loving the series on different perspectives!
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Great post set-up..
I love the way you placed a line in front of Shiawase text! Lovely perspective of the female Paladin tank…
It’s fun to read somebody has so much ease with a Prot-Pala while struggling as bit with the Prot-Warr.
I have all 4 tanks at 80 and all Crit-immune and must say that I find Paladin the most difficult to tank with.. so many things to monitor and so little mobility!
I guess it’s just what you grow up with…
Looking forward to the dead-tank post!
~Baruti.
.-= Baruti´s last blog ..Introduction: Searinox =-.
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Wonderful idea on interviewing each tanking class – gives great perspective and I can’t wait till the next one!
Being a Prot Warr myself, I have been leveling a Tankadin and was also amazed at the drop in stress level. I can understand why so many people roll one – they’re easy.. at least that’s mho. In time, I even hope to have my little Druid swiping her way to tank-dom. Sadly, I’m still on the fence about DKs.. boredom sets in and they get deleted >.<
Anyway, thank you and looking forward to reading more!
- Ria
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Heh. I main tank for our raids as a prot pally, and I’m having oodles of illicit fun leveling a prot warrior in RDF… because they’re so strong where paladins are weak. I literally titter a bit to myself every time I see a cast bar on the enemy name plate because then I can go “NO SPELL FOR U!” *whap*. Oh, and then I got to use a real AoE taunt to save the party from a huge zerg (as in several more than three, which is the max a paladin can taunt at one time) in Gnomer last night and I damn near fainted from the thrill.
I might feel different standing the two side by side at eighty… but right now I’m having so much fun I’m kind of considering switching mains when Cataclysm hits.
.-= LabRat´s last blog ..Offensensitive =-.
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Omg I am tired of hearing ppl say that tanking heroics on a warrior is hard! If you have problems holding threat you are FAIL…I consistently pull threat off of our pally tank on icc trash. We are both around 3200 GS per wow-heroes. Unless a pug is pushing 7k dps (more than 1 at that with vigilance) I have never lost threat once. Glyph of cleave, thunderclap, shockwave with t10 bonus? Get real and learn tank!
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Kadomi Reply:
April 30th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
If you cannot come to a warrior blog and engage in polite discussion you are FAIL.
Kudos to you for pulling off a paladin. I am a prot warrior with a wow-heroes score of 2900. I spam Cleave, Thunderclap, Revenge and Shockwave in heroics, and yet people pull off me, in a combination of pulling for me, putting down heavy AoE just after I have charged or heavily outgearing me so that my TPS cannot keep up.
I wouldn’t call warrior tanking heroics hard, but it’s more stressful than tanking as a paladin. I am not talking about raids, which are still the big equalizer, at least TPS-wise.
P.S.: not every single warrior in the world actually already has T10 bonus. Get real.
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Baruti Reply:
May 21st, 2010 at 7:44 am
Hihi, nice reaction Kadomi! ^_^
And indeed.. I feel so sorry for people who say:”If you can’t… you fail”
Simply put, some people are better at stuff than others, expirience differs, specific gear differs (3200gs with only defensive gear has significantly lower TPS then 3200GS with lots of Expertise/hit/str.)
On the Warrior/Paladin topic.. I have all tanks at 80 and (at least) heroic-ready. And even tho my Warrior vastly outgears my Paladin (I don’t have numbers, but it’s the difference between half blue/purpz on my pally and 232avg on my Warr) I must say heroics are far easier on my Paladin (cept for PoS and HoR)
~Baruti
.-= Baruti´s last blog ..Why not tank? =-.
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If you did random heroics everyday for a month and voa’s you would have them. Not trying to hate, just tired of hearing ppl hate on the warrior tank and using it as a reason for rolling a diff class. Blame ur skill and not the mechanics is all
Again, if u don’t have t10 pieces yet (which you should if you are raiding) you don’t really deserve to be raidin…I’m out
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Arencey Reply:
May 3rd, 2010 at 4:27 am
On a separate note to you grungi people like you really ruin this game, sitting in trade asking for too much gs achieve and putting people down for not having t10 like you, people are supposed to enter raids when they get heroic geared, not enter t10 raids for the first time when they have full t10.
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You’re right about paladin tanking being the best for pugging, my main used to be an 80 pally before I moved on to dk(admittably for more of a challenge)
The thing I can’t stand is when someone who doesn’t even have an 80 tank tries to start an arguement with me for stating this fact to someone asking about the differences between warrior and pally, I had no trouble admitting this fact when I was a prot pally and I don’t think alot of prot pallys do, the class has other aspects to it than threat with loh, buffs, and such.
However, if you wanna get down to it and say paladin tanking is no more harder than warrior tanking you are terribly biased, as I said I have a lvl 80 paladin and the only warrior experience I have is playing my friend’s prot warrior and my level 60 warrior alt ,and I have no trouble admitting threat is more complex on a warrior, Good Warriors are the champions of tanking and rather than spreading lies out of jealousy I respect warriors for that.
I am pleased to hear about the additions to paladin tanking in cataclysm, mainly the fact that they are adding in a different rotation for smaller and single target fights, which is the reason I got so bored with the class to begin with,(spamming the same rotation in every scenario) who knows, with blizz killing frost and unholy tanks I might return to my paladin in cata.
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Kadomi Reply:
May 3rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
As I mentioned, I leveled a prot paladin. She’s still not 80, she is 78, but I have tanked all Northrend instances up to Halls of Stone. I had a bit of a learning curve learning a rotation, as warriors do not have a rotation of any kind, but after that it was smooth sailing.
I believe to excel as paladin tank, you have to be able to use everything your class has to offer. The different Hands, LoH, the vast utility you bring to the table. I think every prot paladin understanding 9-6-9 can tank easily. But to be amazing, you need more than that, just as you mention.
I still prefer the mobility and flexibility of a prot warrior, which feels a bit more raw and difficult to execute than the almost elegant tanking style of the prot paladin.
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Hi Kadomi,
I was just wondering.
If I remember correctly, all tanks, cept for you, seem to have other mains (even on the other faction)
Is you guild that low on tanks, are the other tanks not willing to ‘talk’ here or did you just like the tanks you choose because you like them and the things they do?
Just wondering..
~Baruti.
.-= Baruti´s last blog ..Why not tank? =-.
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Kadomi Reply:
May 21st, 2010 at 9:11 am
We are that low on tanks. The girls who posted are the other three tanks who are currently raiding with us. We have a bunch of tank alts, but they don’t raid and only run heroics, as they raid on their horde mains.
I do like all the tanks who posted here a lot too, but seriously, that’s what we have, our very diverse tanking team.
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