Solannis: Back to the Front Lines

Greetings, allow me to introduce myself. I am Solannis, a Blood Knight of Silvermoon and second-in-command of the motley crew my associate Ragar has assembled. As he mentioned earlier this week, I have served primarily as the team's combat medic and resident jewelcrafter/scribe. I've dabbled some with the other specializations during my training, but my primary focus has always been to support the team from the rear ranks with blessings and healing as necessary. However, as of late I've begun to think that I should broaden my horizons and take up another role in the fight: that of a tank.

This isn't to say that I want to stop healing altogether, mind you. I do enjoy the work and there is a sense of satisfaction in knowing that you played a pivotal role in the group's success and survival. There are three main reasons that I've considered switching over to the tanking side of things: job availability, variety, and a preferable path of gear progression.

I'm not claiming anything as ludicrous as "there's no jobs out there for healers." However, I have to consider the group that our team typically works with for questing and dungeon excursions. They have plenty of competent damage dealers available and even a fair number of healers who I've worked with and can vouch for their skill. For tanking however, the options are a bit more slim. Due to some bizarre restrictions in the rules Ragar agreed to when he got our team's charter, we're only allowed to field one representative per battle (ah, the wonders of bureaucracy - I wonder if the Alliance has the same problem). Given that restriction, Ragar is usually picked for most of our field work. If I were to switch over to a tanking role, then we could split the workload and hopefully make better use of our time and any equipment that's acquired.

Variety is probably the main reason I'm looking at this switch. With my recent trip to the healing trainer, I received some modifications to my existing spells and one truly new ability: Beacon of Light. Beacon is definitely useful, so I'm not speaking poorly of it. I could definitely tell the difference from having it around when I went with a group to explore Zul'Aman recently. Allowing heals on the rest of the team to also heal the tank does cut down on the amount of bouncing around between targets that my job usually entails. The problem is that, besides this "my heals do double duty" spell, my job is for the most part unchanged. I cast Flash of Light 90% of the time, with the occasional Holy Shock or Holy Light for large spikes of damage. I believe the trainer mentioned a new somewhat reactive spell they were researching, but that's probably not going to be ready until we're ready to head into Icecrown. For the moment, it's more of the same, perhaps with a Judgement or two as time and mana permit. Looking at that, I think my desire for a change of pace is understandable.

My third reason may not be quite as applicable as we head into Northrend, but given the equipment choices I've had up to this point, I'll mention it anyways. As a healing paladin, I have a handful of traits that I look for in all of my gear: spellpower, critical strike rating, and intellect. With the dungeons that I was able to explore in Outland, most of the equipment would possess plenty of spellpower and intellect, but it would lack the crit bonuses that I desired. Instead it usually provided me with a trickle of mana regeneration every five seconds; helpful, but nowhere near as useful. As someone who regains their mana on critical heals, this equipment doesn't really fit my needs, so I had to turn to a less desirable source: *shudder* Arenas. I did not particularly care for the Arena experience or the effect it had on my mood of my teammates (I think you would be hard-pressed to find a quicker way to make someone go from happy to murderous), but it was a necessary evil because the Arena gear all possessed each of the traits I desired in my equipment. As such, we trudged through it until we got what we needed. Now if I was a tank, then this situation need not repeat itself. All of my desired equipment would come from crafting or from the treasure troves of our fallen foes, both of which are far more palatable options to me.

Another possible benefit to this switch is that it would allow Ragar and I the opportunity to compare and contrast the various nuances of tanking with warriors and paladins. Currently our only source of information on paladin tanking is an old Alliance associate of the team, but there's problems getting accurate data from him. Mainly it's that his equipment is horribly out of date. We'd ask him about his past tanking experience, but those conversations usually degrade into, "Back in my day I had to tank Blackrock Spire with a broken Seal of Fury, and we had to walk uphill in the snow to find upgrades just to lose the rolls to Arms warriors and Ret paladins." Looks like I'll have to find another source of information on this while we bide our time waiting for the Northrend zeppelins to arrive.