Why all the hate?

An oldie but goodie

Rhidach and Honor’s Hammer have both blogged about this today, but I feel like I need to put in my own two cents. There has been a trend for the last 4 weeks or so where warriors are QQ’ing to no end over the perceived dominance of paladin tanks. This has perpetuated the official forums (which shouldn’t surprise anyone who lingers there), but has also found its way into much more intelligent forums (like Tankspot.com).

What we need to ask ourselves is, “Why is there such hatred from Warriors toward Paladins?” Honor’s Hammer brought up the possibility that it is because we share gear. Possible, but is that really that much different from BC? In BC, paladins who wanted to tank and who didn’t have access to tier gear largely wore warrior gear with a spellpower weapon. I know I did. Back in BC I was in a guild of RL friends and didn’t progress much (meaning I did a whole lot of Kara, and then worked on my alts). I only saw Gruul’s a couple of times. Never saw Mags. I missed all of Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. I’ve never seen Black Temple (I still need to do that at some point) or Hyjal. I did complete Zul’Aman pre-nerf (with some friends from a much more progressed guild). And through all of that content that I didn’t do, I geared like a warrior, except I used a spellpower weapon. Warriors didn’t care then. Why would they care now.

My suspicion is because they are not being propped up as the “best” tank by the devs anymore. And the less skilled warrior tanks out there don’t like losing tanking spots to more skilled paladin tanks. Notice I didn’t say anything about warriors tanks losing spots to paladin tanks on the basis of their class. The skill of the player behind the keyboard is the key. I have a warrior co-tank who is also our raid leader. He doesn’t QQ about paladin OP’ness. At least not when I’m around. I hate to admit it, but probably 50% of everything I know about tanking (situational awareness, movement, etc), I learned from watching him. He is in no danger of losing his raid spot to a tank of another class.

It’s funny. When DKs were the defacto hard mode tanks, paladins didn’t cry on the forums for a nerf. It was mostly warriors doing that. I think I see where this is going now. It is my suspicion that there are a number of warrior tanks out there who have been tanking since vanilla based on the fact that they rolled a warrior. Now that the other tanking classes are basically on par with warriors, player skill is rearing its ugly head. And many longtime warrior tanks are finding themselves out of a job.

“Don’t blame the player, blame the game.” Wait…..no, absolutely blame the player. The game is fair and balanced (within a couple of % points anyway). If you warriors want to channel your rage at another tank, point it at druids. They are like improved warriors anyway (amirite?). They use the same resource system. Have similar skills and abilities. But have more effective health and do more DPS while tanking than warriors, paladins, or death knights.

Let’s be brothers of the shield and dog pile on the druids!