How to Play a Paladin Tank in "World of Warcraft"

"World of Warcraft" has kept many a player up late into the night.

Part of the "World of Warcraft" video game requires players to form teams to tackle difficult areas, filled with an overwhelming number of bad guys that are difficult to defeat, known as dungeons or raids. The members of these teams have specific functions to play. The "Tank" is the player whose job is to keep monsters attacking him so the other players can deal damage without being attacked. One character class that lends itself well to "tanking," as it is called, is the Paladin.

Instructions

1. Select talents and abilities that increase your stamina, your threat level and your ability to dodge attacks. This generally will require you to put almost all your talent points into the "Protection" talent tree. Maximizing your stamina will maximize your health, your threat level will attract more monsters to you and dodge will decrease the likelihood that attacks will deal damage to you.

2. Equip yourself with weapons and armor from your collection that maximize your health and armor rating. Remember that, as a tank, your job is to act as a target for monsters, not to do damage.

3. Cast the "Righteous Fury" aura on yourself when you enter the dungeon. This aura increases your threat level for monsters. Because monsters go after the individual whose threat level is highest, this will help attract monsters to you and keep them off your party.

4. Charge into mobs ahead of your party and keep the attention on yourself. Don't worry about killing individual monsters as that is the damage per second (DPS) job. Instead, keep distributing your damage among the different monsters and continue casting spells across the different monsters.

5. Heal yourself only if you're on the verge of dying. Otherwise, you need to use your mana for spells that will keep your threat level for the monster mob higher than the rest of your party. Healing, both yourself and your DPSers, is the job of your party's healer. Only heal yourself if you're about to die and your healer won't be able to get to you in time.

6. Continue applying these principles until your party has cleared the dungeon or raid.

References

• Ten Ton Hammer: Paladin Guide - How to Tank as a Paladin
• "WoW" Insider; WoW Rookie: Leveling a Paladin Tank; Lisa Poisso; January 2010
• "World of Warcraft" Cataclysm Signature Series Guide; BradyGames; December 2010