A start

Well, I figured I'd just dive into the whole swing of things with blogging about tanking, but I don't know how to really get started, so I figure my first entry will be about me IRL, and then maybe a little in-game background.

My name is Greg, and I live in a town in the middle of Texas named Abilene. I've had a WoW account since December of '05, but I've only REALLY been playing since May of 2007. I rolled up my main, Raginbull on Shadowmoon, in mid August, and never once looked back. Of course, after tanking once as a warrior, I knew I could never look at the game the same way. The main reason I was on this server was to pvp with a bunch of (moderately) established RL friends who wanted another MS whore. I just couldn't stop tanking though.

Most of my time was spent living in SM pugs, doing whatever I could in Uldaman, and then finally, my epiphany came.

I ran with an all-guild group around my level (this was in my original guild, and they had had kara on farm for a while, and just lacked the -oomph- to go any further), and I specced prot the first time at level 51. I never once looked back. I learned how to do what I loved the most, and started reading up on theorycraft about how to get better at what I was doing.

I probably, and in all likelihood, could have leveled up quicker being either fury or ms/fury, but it just wasn't something I loved. One of the 4 other people in the group that was a constant in my instance grinding was our main healer at priest (who had rolled up a healadin, go figure =P), and another was one of the top dps on his main. They forced me to learn to speed pull, to go without CC, and to do well when the shit hit the fan, figuratively speaking. Our group was me, the healadin, and three rogues, and we went from level 52 all the way to the elusive 70 mark.

At about 62, the guild experienced major drama due to a move from the GM to force us to raid in a more organized fashion (and to be honest and fair, I was more in his side than the others, but the others were the ones helping me), and after the guild's MT left to go with another guild, the new MT (one of the other members in my group) left too, bringing some of the better members of the guild with him.
I was one of 4 non-70's they took.

I was groomed up to be the new tank. I had 10k health unbuffed at level 65, and I was ALL into effective health theory (and if you're reading this, you can look me up on armory, and see that I have a very hard time letting that theory go without a good reason behind it), and was learning how to best do a threat cycle.

Then came my first foray into Karazhan. I was in all blues and greens, but still had 13k unbuffed health, and about 495 defense, along with about 12.5k armor (I was wearing a pair of "of the Champion" greens on my shoulders, and that's why I have those S1's in there, because those damn kara shoulders still have yet to drop for me), and I was slated to be the OT to another guy in the guild with VASTLY superior gear. The only problem was, he didn't have a good threat rotation, he was squishy, and was a warrior built around avoidance, without even the points into Focused Rage.

I was able to pull aggro from him, even on bosses, and once I had it, I never once let it go back to him. I was a tanking whore, and it was at that moment that I got switched from a newbie in the guild (this was my first, and only, 70. I would not be out done on my main.) I slowly became more and more geared, and gradually have taken over the MT duties, RL duties, and have become an officer in my guild.

Herein lies the problem with how my story has gone so far. The same people who had us move out when it came time to respec and get serious about raiding (honestly, with a terrible group of players in the other guild for the most part. Some of our alumni include the biggest joke of a guild on the server, and I'm not proud to have worn that original guild tabard =P) are the same people who have helped us grow together as a guild. We've become like family to each other, a place where everyone knows everyone else's name, and a place where we have some of the better individuals at what they do than I have seen on the rest of the server. However, because of our emphasis on learning each other, we're forced into a snafu.

We need more DPS and healers. Our best ones stay around, getting more and better gear. Our cream of the crop either becomes senior guild members or leaves (the guild, the game, whatever), and we're forced into a new set of people.

I'm the only person who is constantly pugging up groups, and looking for new blood to get us going into the 25 man raids. I've only been in any purple since January, but at the same time, we SHOULD have moved on in my opinion. We owe it to ourselves and each other to move on, and I feel like I've failed the guild as an officer by not filling in spots for what is supposed to be a raiding-oriented guild.

It's not all my fault, and I know that, but I still feel like there's something I should be able to do in order to kick start this thing in the right direction. I love this guild, and we're so close to having the numbers I can taste it.

I guess the point of this post is to point out where I'm starting from, to look at what the current issue is, and see how to fix it, and if that's the case, then my solution has to, in my opinion, revolve around recruiting our couple more dps. We've got the core group, we need the fringes filled in. Warm bodies to make sure that we have a full roster, and I'm certain that with our healing and tank core we can take out the lower end content.

It's just getting and keeping the people that seems to be the problem.

Meh, it's late, and I'll come back to this string of thought later.

If you have any questions, comments, or advice, please let me know. Like I said, this is my first 70, my first toon over level 40, and I want to know how to roll with my new role.

Thanks for reading!
~Bull