On Tanking, Class Matters

I know it must seem crazy that I've got a prot pally coming up (68 and counting!) with a prot warrior already leveled and geared up...but what can I say, I'm spec'd for tanking ;)

Last night, Winter and I hopped in a group with some guildmates on their own "almost 70" alts and we hit Old Hillsbrad and Sethekk Halls. Winter brought his pally for uber heals so our party was: Pally(healz), Pally(tank - me!), Warrior(OT), Mage, Rogue. The warr was spec'd prot but was a couple levels lower than my pally, so he decided to OT and see if he could pull aggro off of me all night, a fun game. I worked hard to keep it (and stealthily salv'd him at one point, just to see if he'd notice - he didn't! :P ) and he worked hard to steal it. We had a lot of fun, and unlike similar runs with our geared characters, we actually managed to pick up some useful items along the way.

The run, as fun as it was, reminded me of my frustrations with warrior tanking. I've always maintained that warriors should be *the* tanking class, they can't do anything else better than other classes, so they should be able to do that. Prior to tBC, I tanked with my warrior, and LOVED it. Sadly with tBC, the three tanking classes sort of leveled out on the main tanking ability, with pallies and druids getting the benefit of utility, and better multi-pull control.

Having come from a warrior perspective, tanking all these same instances in 5-man groups, tanking with my paladin seems like cheating! It's too easy. I can handle a lot of mobs without much effort, in fact it's always feels silly to be fighting just one thing, when I can be wearing down two or three others at the same time, making less pulls later on. As a warrior, I had to struggle, especially with the multi-pulls. Thunderclap just doesn't hold a candle to Consecration, and now that pallies have a taunt AND a range pull (be careful with that!) there's really no reason that I can see not to take a pally in place of a warrior. Buffs, rez, better multi-pull tank...crazy.

Tanking is what I love to do, but I have to be able to do it well, the struggle with my warrior was just so frustrating, she went from uber tank, to second class OT so fast it left my head spinning. I'm ready this time though, my warrior is waiting at 70, ready for the rush to 80 when WotLK hits, but I also have my druid (currently resto) and now my pally ready and waiting. A DK is on my to-do list too, as soon as I get to 80 with my warr. I want to tank, but I want to bring the best class for the job to the table...I don't want a raid settling for me as a tank, because a different class wasn't available. It's a big project I know, but I'm an altaholic, it's what I live for.

Time for that last push to 70 with my pally...If she's this much fun now...I want to see what she really can do, at cap.