Friday, June 3, 2011

Second Spec - The little goat that could (maybe)

For some reason it never really occurred to me that people wouldn't want me to tank. Grinding up through levels, being spoiled with nonexistent wait times with dungeon finder, I always heard that tanks were in high demand. Hell, people were offering to buy them for Heroic runs in Trade Chat. Why wouldn't I immediately find my niche when my gear score ooched up high enough and Lemni immediately chrysalized into the baddest motherfuckin Tank in all of Azeroth.

But it was getting pulled into a guild Heroic and being asked to go dps that really set things ablaze for me. Retribution may have been the offspec of choice, but I never found a comfort level with it. Lemni doesn't have a second set of gear for it. I don't have experience with it. I warned the guild - in Chat and in Vent 'you can have Prot or really crappy Ret'. They opted for the crappy Ret. And crappy was what they got. I just couldn't do the damage. My dps gear is nonexistent. My score was so utterly low it was probably laughable. We flopped around in Baradin Hold and got obliterated when we couldn't get the boss down before he Berzerked and smashed us all.

They asked me to respec over to Prot and we did fine as the other tank and I taunted back and forth in between running around and avoiding bad. It was totally fine. I was at least a little glad I did alright tanking my first miniraid. While 'friends' proceeded to crush my fragile ego by saying 'It's really not a hard fight to tank'.

Thanks assholes.

It put me off to the toon. The group. The idea of playing a paladin at all. I felt like I had no hooves to stand on. I've got the gear score for heroics, but not the gear or experience. And now I just want to start over. But I can't. What I should do is start doing regular level dungeons and just slowly amassing some kind of gear and experience. But I don't really feel like it. I don't even know where to start. Occasionally I log in to Lemni and do some dailies. Ones where I don't have to push buttons (thanks Ramkahen).

The whole experience has left me neglecting this blog and even my Twitter. I rolled a tiny psycho Gnome rogue on a different server just for some mindless low level dps and getting in the dungeon experience I was too chicken to try with Lemniscate. I need an ego boost. I need some guidance. Some direction. Where do I go for gear when I'm 85 and my poor space goat is having a mid life crisis, forsaking her nice normal flying mount for an impractical protodrake. Some time on Wowhead is in my future.

The fact that I logged in a few weeks ago and saw that the guild was putting together a new ten man team really rankled me. It isn't personal. I know that. But now that I'm going Ret I'm solidly refusing to waste any more time and money on Prot gear. For now at least. I'm at the point where the gulf is so wide that I can't just get by with one set of gear, no matter what I've been told in the past.

Maybe I'm just moping. But I hit one of those 'I'm not enjoying this' plateaus, so I went off to find something that I did enjoy. Will I ever play Lemni again? Sure. Will I ever tank again? Maybe, probably. I'm too attached to her to turn her into a bank alt.

The goat will rise again.