My first epic was a lucky drop in Maraudon. I was there together with some friends, questing and having fun, like usual.

Blackskull Shield dropped. The group was made up by two paladins (one being me), a mage, a shaman and someone else, I can’t remember who. Being a BoE shield, they all wanted to need on it to sell it. But we managed to put reason above profit and convinced the mage and the other player to pass on it. The other Paladin passed also. So it was left to me and the shaman. We both needed. I won. Needless to say, I was very happy.

Wanting to put it to good use, I respeced Protection about that time and stayed that way to this day. This shield lasted me until Outland. I couldn’t find a better shield anywhere until then. Better put, I didn’t want to changed it because it was Epic and I was very proud of it. Buying The Burning Crusade and hitting Outland meant the end for my pretty Epic. I changed it with a reward from the 2nd or 3rd quest there. So, for the people asking “Are the TBC quest rewards so much better?”. Yes, they are much, much better than anything you could get from Azeroth.

Getting back to the roll, the shaman was upset because he felt that he should have it without even rolling. Why? Because he needed a shield. That was it. That was his argument. And he still holds a grudge on me, even after such a long time. I find that funny tho many would say pathetic. From my point of view it was fair roll. I wouldn’t have been upset if I had lost.

So yeah, that’s how I got my first epic drop. I’m curious how did you get yours. Anyone remember?

It’s actually a short story I like to tell whenever I hear remarks like “Nice, you tank good!”.

As I already told you, this is my first WoW character. When I started playing I had no idea about what to do: what spec to chose, what gear to ware, in which talents should I invest talent points in, etc. So I looked at the talent tree and I had three options: Holy, Protection and Retribution.

I didn’t want to chose Holy because I didn’t want to heal. I wanted to do damage. Protection wasn’t appealing for me also because, again, I wanted to do damage! So I was left with Retribution.

I stayed Retribution from level 10 to about level 40ish. I can’t really remember when I switched Protection, but I can recall that I was doing a Maraudon run with me tanking and my first epic dropped. That’s the earliest thing I can remember of me being a tank.

Getting back on the subject, I was telling you about a little story that opened my eyes to Paladin tanking. I was around level 25 and together with Revlon we were searching for a group to Gnomeregan. Enough to say we didn’t have much luck, but right when we wanted to give up, a brave Draenei Paladin knight, Dracthelaen, came and boosted us through. Yes, he was Protection.

I just loved how he just rushed into the instance, gathered whole packs of mobs without the fear of dieing. And he just kept going and going and going. I was mesmerized to say the least. Of course, he was like 20 or 30 levels above the instance. But still, I got boosted before by a mage, warrior or even holly paladins and nothing compared to Protection Paladins.

So thank you Drac for opening my eyes to Paladin tanking.

As I mentioned earlier, I started playing World of Warcraft over eight months ago as a Human Paladin on [EU]Karazhan - Alliance.

Leveling on this realm was hard (and still is) because of the high number of horde population. When I started playing the Horde to Alliance ratio was around 7 to 1. Now it’s around 3 to 1.

You can imagine that ganking alliance players was a common thing to do for horde. Zones like Arathi Highlands, Tanaris or STV were hell of earth for us, poor alliance. I remember waking up and playing early in the morning just so I can complete some quests. Those were some hard times.

Finding PUGs and grouping for instances was also very hard on Karazhan. Few players, most of them being starters at this game, like me, made groups rarely successful. I remember that at my first DM run I was forced to heal (yeah, I know!) by a druid tank who just pulled and pulled and didn’t think about mana or even marks. And after he died a few times because of his own idiotic behavior, he left the group in the middle of the instance.

I was lucky enough that around level 25 I met a really nice Draenei Paladin named Revlon who got me in a guild called Damage Inc, in which I stayed until 70 and a long time after. In this guild I met a lot of good players and fun people to play with. I would just like to mention Revlon, Dracthelaen, Tentaklossus, Elysia, Shalix, Unvincible, Xathrina and many more.

Eventually I made it to 70. It took me 23 days, 4 hours and 9 minutes of playtime. I know, I’m slow. But I made it. The last two levels I was rested (I didn’t play for a week) and I was really happy I’ve done them in a short period of time. First thing that socked me at 70: the insane price you have to pay for the skills. Around 100g. It was a lot of money for me at that time. But I had to train them so I paid. Lucky for me Paladins get the level 40 mount practically free and the 60 mount cheaper than the other classes so I had some money to spare. But after that I was broke.

I wasn’t a guild shifter like many on my realm. I stayed loyal for a long time to the first guild I was in. I made friends there and wanted to play with them. I even became officer in that guild. I really enjoyed staying and playing in Damage Inc. But every story has an end and the guild eventually disbanded. Some transferred to Daggerspine to join a good raiding guild, some stayed behind and made progress on Karazhan. I preferred to take a brake so I didn’t renew my subscription during the winter holidays. But after almost a month of not playing, I came back and here I am, still on Karazhan.

What now? I don’t know. I recently joined a guild called Pandemic who transferred here a few days ago and for now, I’m enjoying my stay here. They like Paladin tanks and they take me raiding. They are also nice people to talk and play with. What’s more to ask?