Goodbye my spec

I am retribution... I will not respec... maybe if I can I will dual spec prot but my guild will never ever see me as a tank again. When I was leveling my paladin I told Jaer that when I was a tank on raids I would make sure that there was always a place for him on the raids and now that will not happen. His girlfriend is the guild's main tank and the truth is not just that she is better than me but that I know that I could never be a consistently perfect tank, I am a good tank and I could be a periodically sublime one but never a perfect one. It costs me a lot to admit this, it also costs me a lot to let go of my dream of tanking for Jaer but it happened. I do like ret but it's not like... my first real tanking experience was a PuG group, a pick up group made up of random players, and we ran a dungeon called the Nexus and it was sublime, everything was perfect and all the pieces fell into place. I have yet to have a sublime moment with my new spec and I worry that I will not. Secretly I feel I have to make mt spec work because there is no way I can change back and I worry that I will never have a sublime moment with my paladin anymore.

Recently a druid tank joined the guild and another guild leader tried tanking for the first time and they talked about tanking, every word of those discussions was a pain in my heart because they made me feel like a failure as a player. Jaer has told me that it was not because I was a bad tank that he recommended a respec but I can't help but feel like I did fail as a tank every time they talk about it. This is me though. I know that Jaer is my friend and that he only wants what is best for me, I do the same for him but I am having trouble saying goodbye to my spec. I wish I was not having problems but I am, I was so proud as a tank and now I sort of feel somehow less as DPS. I try telling myself I will rock as DPS but it's not the same as knowing that I have rocked as a tank, maybe I need to test out my spec in a team environment, maybe I am just a stupid glory hog and I liked being a tank because good tanks get glory, whatever it is talk of tanking makes me feel bad inside and I have no idea how to express it.

Kind of silly to get worked up about a video game though. I would argues though that it's not the game but a perceived loss of social status that is bothering me but I don't know if that is just a justification. Yesterday I joined my guildies on a low level dungeon run to help the new tank and as much as I wanted to be part of the fun I felt sort of... seeing my friend really enjoying tanking reminded me of the good times I had, times that I would never have again. Moreover I don't think that my new spec will really get me more invites to guild events, DPS is dime a dozen and I am sure they know more than enough people that inviting me will not be a priority. I really have no clue why I respecced and the only think I know is that I do not want to respec back, no matter how sad not being prot makes me sometimes.

The (un)kindest cut

My guild leader Jaer and I got into a fight yesterday. I participated in a raid, that's when I realized that raiding was maybe not for me, it's hard work and if everybody is not where they are supposed to be then the whole group can wipe. It can be very stressful and I am not sure I want to deal with that kind of stress on a regular basis. I had been feeling like some of my guild members have been talking behind my back but trying to tell myself that this was not the case. The first time a random guild member told me I would enjoy a different spec I did not think much about it but then everybody talking about death knight tanks, being told three times in a day that "tanking is a big responsability" with that unspoken "I don't think that you can handle it", Jaer's hesitation to let me in the raid in the first place... I'm angry because they talked behind my back and not just in passing, they expressly went off to the side to talk about me and it hurts... Jaer told me that they did not mean to hurt me, and that they did not say anything bad about me and no matter how bruised my pride is I can't help but try to understand where everybody is coming from... I understand that Jaer was hesitant to tell me how he felt because he did not want to insult me, I understand that I could probably do ok as DPS on a raid because I can follow orders well enough and not quibble about it too much, I understand that my guild leader needs me to not be a dork about this, still... I wish he could have told me... the truth is I am not even that attached to my spec and even now as I am still a little defensive I am contemplating a respec. The thing is if it's "he respecced cause he can't cut it as a tank" I am not sure I even want to play the game anymore. Maybe I would enjoy playing ret more but right now I am still upset and respeccing while I feel like shit is a bad idea.

Bottom line: I can change my spec, it's not the end of the world if I do, I may try it out... I can't say I am not curious... to try ret

What is a paladin?

Guardians of the Holy Light, paladins bolster their allies with holy auras and blessing to protect their friends from harm and enhance their powers. Wearing heavy armor, they can withstand terrible blows in the thickest battles while healing their wounded allies and resurrecting the slain. In combat, they can wield massive two-handed weapons, stun their foes, destroy undead and demons, and judge their enemies with holy vengeance. Paladins are a defensive class designed to outlast their opponents.

The Paladin is a mix of a melee fighter and a secondary spell caster. The Paladin is ideal for groups due to the Paladin's healing, Blessings, and other abilities. Paladins can have one active aura per Paladin on each party member and use specific Blessings for specific players. Paladins are pretty hard to kill, thanks to their assortment of defensive abilities. The Paladin can also heal with Holy Light, unlike other combat classes. The Paladin is an Undead specific fighter as well, with several abilities designed to be used against the Undead.

Source: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/

I play a tankerdin, that is a paladin tank, I may not be the most amazing pally tank the world has ever seen but I am still learning and I am an ok tank if I do say so myself. I think a chunck of my problem is that I need the practice and another bit of it is that I need the experience.

Paladind have three talent trees http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html

the holy tree which centers on healing, the retribution tree focused on dealing damage and the protection tree focused on taking damage. The protection tree is the tanking tree, as a tank the goal is to keep the monsters attacking you and nobody else so that they can heal or deal damage unmolested.

Spiders, webs... and terrible poison, oh my!

Today I tanked Azjol Nerub for the first time, my guild leader Jaer was there and he encouraged me, he also told me about some add ons, programs that modify the interface of WoW, how I interact with the game that should make my life easier. Having him on the runs is both really cool and sometimes a little disconcerting, he knows pallies so well cause he raided on one that he can give me advice and having him means I pay extra special attention so I can do it right to impress him, but it also makes me a little nervous because he's a better paladin than I am. Today even though we died a few times and I was reminded to keep consacrate up he told me I did good, I think it's not fair of me to rely on him for my self confidence and when I got into the swing of things and believed in myself I ok, I am still adjusting my bars and getting used to tanking. It's not the most difficult thing in the world but it still takes getting used to sometimes. One of the things that was bad this time was that one boss had poison that leeched my life and healed hers, maybe my new addons will help with that. I feel bad that we wiped at all actually. I think it's not that wipes don't matter but that if you wipe and learn from it and then manage to clear the dungeon you did a good job.

Let's try this again, only this time more feeling'

On Friday I tanked Nexus twice and I think I did a pretty good job. My first party wiped twice against the final boss and my other party wiped about twice or three times against some bosses. I died once on the second team because I ran ahead when our healer was afk. My only problem with that was that our healer spontaneously went AFK (away from keys) with no warning. I will admit that there was a moment when I charged not realizing that we needed to wait for her to get her mana back up. I thought I did pretty well, since both times I went through the Dungeon pretty efficiently. On Sunday my guild leader and I had a talk, he's the one with a high level , used to raid paladin, and he had an alt in the second dungeon team and he asked me why I had not been using my Avenger's Shield to pull mobs. I am really embarrassed about admitting this but I was running up to mobs and hitting them to draw aggro when I should have known better. My guild leader was not mean or harsh but very gentle about it, I was so ashamed by what I had done, I don't think I will ever not pull mobs again, it really is not a reliable way to draw and maintain aggro. Thinking about it I realized that I had been taking unnecessary risks and why? Because I was afraid my party wouyld charge in and steal my aggro. My guild leader told me this maxim "If the tank dies it's usially the healer's fault, if the healer dies it's usually the tank's fault and if the DPS dies it's usually their own fault." I need to pull and have faith in my DPS. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody is sloppy sometimes and if I don't take this opportunity to learn then maybe I should not tank.

In other tanking news I got a tanking weapon and I am really happy about it.