I noted it being before 4.2 – because I switched over to my bear before they dropped the cooldown on swipe down. I love love loved the challenge and fun that it took to hold aggro on all those mobs – tab targeting with mangle to maintain aggro over that fury warrior who way outgears you – and then finishing second on the dps. Oh… and pulling with magic mushrooms (the pandas want to take that away from me).

But the biggest pain with pally tanking for me is streaming adds. Hammer of the Righteous is horrible if you play with any form of latency. You try to use it but the local check goes ‘that mob is too far away’ and then when it allows you on the local side it fails server side because ‘Your target must be in front of you’. Playing from Australia I always have enough latency that it annoys me – some fights (i.e. dragonhawk in ZA) you can work around it just by always tanking the boss, but otherwise it is a big big pain.

But I agree – it is better to tank (and heal) as you go. I’ve almost got my DK to max level (then I’ll have one of each tank… until my panda comes along) and haven’t been doing much tanking – I’ve just been enjoying frost dps too much – and queue times for DPS have been in the sub 10 minute mark – hardly enough time for me to be powerleveling inscription (so I don’t have to do Therezzane rep again). The learn as you level is the reason my bear has never been resto – I started a second druid to learn healing – I think it is generally a good introduction – yes you don’t have all the tools you need, but it does mean you gain and can master them as you go instead.

I’m of slightly different views. I leveled my Pally tanking back in WotLK and do it once in a blue moon (mainly Holy/HolyPVP) but it isn’t as satisfying to me as it is you. Instead of epic, maybe it’s the little girl model, I sorta throw out sparkles and glitter at the mobs until they stand on me.

Mechanically they’re very solid, tho. No doubt.

My warrior? Tauren. He’s a beast. He’s *SO* much fun to level as. Charge, thunderclap, cleave, shield slam, charge again, intervene back to pick up a pat I missed, voosh voosh voosh. He’s all bursting from spot to spot as a huge thundering bull god of war. It’s *glorious!*

Still, glad you’re having fun. It’s so nice to reinvent the game for yourself, eh? ^_^

I wonder if starting out with a full resource bar does make a difference in the flow/feel of pally tanking opposed to the other classes. I have tried tanking on all classes, and the waiting for your resource bar to give you enough juice for that critical spell that just may come too late or in the nick of time certainly adds a heightened level of urgency to the task at hand. While I haven’t tanked on all classes at max level, I think I’ve had enough overall experience to recognize that pally tanking is a bit more relaxed, possibly contributing to a sense of them being a “more fun” tank class/style.

I highly recommend you try DK tanking. The waiting on resource issue aside, it’s got somewhat of a pally feel to it… but wielding a 2-hander! Good fun, but ymmv. I was probably doing something wrong, contributing to my resource “issue,” on all the non-pally tank classes. :)

Out of all the MANY iterations I have experienced with prot pally rotations/talents/abilities/gear, 4.3 stands out as the best yet. At 85 end game as well as while leveling, the rotation is interesting and meaningful, with few gaps in it, and all the associated abilities make things “work”.
The move to active mitigation in the future will only require a few minor changes to Holy Shield and bringing WoG back off cooldown.

Cheerio!

I did it for the pvp aspect though, I macroed charge to /roar. Now when my cat charges out of stealth, roaring and lands a ravage for 75% of my target’s health, it does feel rather OP. :D With a mouseover feral faerie fire macro bound to mousewheel up, my feral druid is a rogue hunting machine.

OP gear is fun, in instances, a kitty in pvp epics swiping away turns packs of adds into mulch. In BGs if you have a bunch of enemies at a flag and go into berserk swipe mode, they die before they know whats going on.

I got the honor epics at 70 and it was a hoot! What sucks though is how your dps actually goes down as you level past 70… the combat ratings curve is steep and at 73 you’re usually doing less dps as a cat than you were at 70. :)

It IS fun to be OP. :D

I have to admit, however, that by questing only it left me with a lot of “What do those buttons do?” moments when I did try to tank at max level. I never had to use that spell (can’t even remember the name for it) that pulls, what…up to 3 angry mobs off a friendly target (?) while I quested, so when I did start tanking I never even thought about it. If a friendly was in trouble I would just run to them and hope I had some kind of AoE off cooldown so I could pull the baddies off them. While questing I NEVER had to use my “bubble”, not to mention I couldn’t even tell you the name of the “bubble” spell if you asked me…Divine somethin’ or other?

I don’t play my pally much, but I did have fun while I leveled him. He sits at 85 and acts as my go to tank for old content (raids/dungeons) to solo or tank for guild groups looking for moggin’ gear. I still don’t know what half his abilities are, let alone use them…but I can agree with you on the fact that Prot Pallies do have A LOT of stuff to use….you just never “need” to use them while questing. I really wish Blizz would bring back class quests, and expand on them, for players like me to give us a good way to learn what all those abilities are really for….lol.