More Paladin Craziness......

I'm mad I tell you! MAD!! Why? Cause I started a new Dwarf Paladin. Yeah I know, I just deleted a level 8 Draenei Paladin. I was pissed off when I did that, mainly at Blizz for jerking me around so much with the changes. Changes that really didn't amount to much in actual use, although I still don't agree with the way they are doing things, I am learning to deal with it better. Change is the nature of the game, and I just can't abandon a character because I am feeling pissy.

Anyway. So you may be asking why I would want to level another Paladin when Dradis is already level 71. Well the answer is simple, as much as I like to look at her ass, I am tired of running around as a girl and I don't like the way that armor looks on her. Everything ends up really small, not quite as bad as a Belf chick, but almost. So I am going for something more.... errr manly I guess? That and I am tired of the /flirts and the always being asked if I am a girl or not, and then when I say "No", I get the "Why are you playing a girl then?" response. So there you have it. Purely asthetic. That and I want to compare Pally tanking to DK tanking. So how am I going to level up Mr. Stoneforge? First 13 points are going into Ret to get Pursuit of Justice. The rest will be filling out the Prot tree. So basically I will leveling Prot after level 22. If it doesn't work out very well, then I will go with the tried and true Ret leveling, but I would like to give Prot leveling a second go around with all the recent updates.

At this point, Amadis is my main. He has fought hard for it, and he has earned it. The mechanics are awesome. Easy to level with, good DPS and lots and lots of options with specs. Maybe too many. I have already dumped over 500g in respecs, but then again I am learning the class still. Currently I have what I consider to be an Unholy Tank spec. We will see how it works out, but I am a little concerned with tanking. The lack of a shield means that I have to rely on pure avoidance, which from what I can tell will never get anywhere near 102.4%, but I could be wrong. The added stat of block really really helps to cover that gap. And yes, I know crushing blows will not be an issue. But if 102.4% is still obtainable, then I can see at least Pally and Warrior tanks working for it, which means that DKs will have to be able to match them in some way in order to avoid being second string. If Pallys/Warriors are easier to keep going during a fight, then DKs will be second string for sure, and I don't want to see that happen.

Granted, Bear tanks don't have block OR parry, just dodge and miss. Then again, they really don't have to put a lot of gear into getting uncrittable since they can basically talent for that. That means they can dump a bunch of their stats into dodge, which also happens to be the cheapest avoidance stat that you can get (block rating being the cheapest of all tank stats, but that is not an option for Bears or DKs). They also have a much larger health pool then DKs, but they have fewer emergency buttons from what I have seen. DKs have a lot of short cooldown tricks, but it looks like they will have to be used all the time, so I can't really call them 'emergency buttons' since most of them will have a high uptime. Hell, i think that Icebound Fortitude will have almost as much uptime as a Warrior's Shield Block. Then again, I am no authority on any tank class, so take all of that with a grain of salt and a trip to Tankspot.com.

I do think that DKs will be able to tank. I just don't want to be in the situation where someone would take my DK as a tank just because they have no other options at the moment. That would be a crappy situation. I have also seen that its going to be challenging to get to 540 defense. I am all for a challenge, makes things interesting. I just don't want it to be the case where overcoming the 540 hurdle will put us behind the other three tanks who don't have to work as hard for it.

I would also like to understand effective health, or EH. I don't know how that differs from your normal health pool. Is there a formula for this? Filters at work prevent me from checking on it. Also, I understand that DKs will have the smallest health pool, does this translate to the least EH as well? That could make healers a little nervous.

Even if tanking doesn't work out for some reason, DPS is freaking fun as a DK! So there is always that. I would have no problem DPSing in a group. Its just that I have always wanted to tank, and the DK seems like it would be a lot of fun to tank with, assuming its on level with the rest of the pack, and not just a "filler tank". Basically I don't want to have my DK in the same position as my Paladin at 2.0. That would suck. Of course at that point, I don't think Bears were that well received either. In any case, we will see how it pans out. I guess the best way to find out is to have Jendreka, the Healy Shaman, heal me on a run and see how it feels to him. Having been a healer myself at one point, the fight is only going to last as long as the healer has mana. If the healer has to use all their big heals all the time, then they will be OOM fast and you will be dead as soon as that happens. That's just my take on it.

On the upside, TPS and holding aggro does not look like it will be a problem. My DPS is great, and AoE situations are just fun with a DK. Between DnD, Pest, Blood Boil, and Unholy Blight, drool. So at least that is a hurdle that will not need to be overcome by any DK.

Upon further thought, this won't quite be an apples to apples comparision between the Pally and DK since the Pally is a dwarf and the DK is a human. Should be close enough though, so I am not too worried about it. Besides, I never had a dwarf before and they seem like good fun. The whole Scottish voice and obsession with drinking makes me chuckle. Variety is the spice of life.

Back to work and studying.

Suffer well.