Why Do I Play A Paladin?

The answer to this question is really easy: flexibility.

Bandin began life as a Retribution paladin. I had just come from playing an Arms warrior and it seemed like the most logical transition. This was before the changes that came about to the specs and rotations with the advent of the Cataclysm expansion, and I loved it. Things died fast, I was self-healing all over the place, and I felt like a wrecking ball of holy light.

It was with Bandin that I first had a taste of tanking in a group setting. Running dungeons with anyone other than my level 80 friend was a daunting thing, but my brother-in-law had just started fiddling around with a Frost mage, so at level 15 or so we jumped into a group. We queued as DPS, but quickly realized that the designated tank had queued for all three dungeons roles as a Balance druid.

Obviously that didn't go well on the first pull.

The guy had no idea what he was doing and he quickly revealed that he was just goofing around. Without asking I tossed up my Righteous Fury buff to improve threat generation and started Divine Storming my way around Wailing Caverns.

I had my brother-in-law with me on the couch so we simply communicated to each other what we needed. If something got away from me he'd freeze it in place and I'd grab it back up real quick. I'd call out what I needed sheeped, and we blew through that dungeon in no time.

The best part was that I did the entire thing in Retribution spec without a single piece of tanking gear. Something that could be done back in the day before the newer changes came about (although not recommended of course). That hooked me on the Paladin class pretty quick after that. I made it all the way to 80 before trying out tanking with proper gear, but once I did I loved it. The Wrath of the Lich King dungeons didn't stand a chance with me leading the way.

After a while I got curious about what it would be like to heal, so I gathered up the materials to have a blacksmith craft me the level 80 healing plate set of gear, grabbed a couple trinkets and rings from drops while tanking and jumped back in as Holy spec. That was even better than tanking. People's lives were in my hands, and I'll admit I had a few "god mode" moments that really got me going.

To this day Bandin is still main-specced Holy and has healed through probably a hundred dungeons or more at this point. I dabbled with a Shockadin (gasp, I know) spec for questing and dailies at the end of Wrath of the Lich King and absolutely loved it. It was a bittersweet day when the talent changes of Cataclysm ruined the opportunity to quest very effectively as Holy at maximum level. I thought that was awfully fun.

I've been out of tanking for a little while now since the talent changes, and have recently been running with a co-worker some older raids to gather tier sets and get some practice back in the rotation. When I reach a certain gear mark I think I'll try tanking normal dungeons again and save healing for heroics.

Having the chance to play all three roles in a dungeon makes the Paladin perfect for me. I know that Druids can do the same thing, but let's be honest, plate gear looks a hell of a lot more awesome than leather gear does.