After all the buffs, I can't help but feel a sense of loss

[Faylinn]

Don't count your chickens....I fear those days aren't over. and there will be many happy masochistic paladins in our futures.

[Snake-Aes]

There's...so many things that happened.
When I first rolled a paladin, I didn't know they were taken as suckers(was maybe september of last year?), but the real thing started at level 66~ where I was finally tanking something other than ramps/SP.

"lol a paladin. i'm not going with that shit of a tank"
"lol 10khp"
"paladins just can't survive a raid boss"

Then I tanked my first heroic(ub), with my mighty 12k hp with fort + kings, and did id awesomely.
Came Karazhan, and a playground of it I made.
Progression tanked Gruul the Dragonkiller...
Progression tanked Lurker, Leotheras, Karathress, Void Reaver...
And still, "lol palatank".

Then I came to a guild who finally had all of t5 on farm and was starting BT/MH.
"No, you won't tank the boss. Go heal"
I guess many here know the feeling.
"Good luck ever raiding again, you failed version of a warrior"<gkick>
1 month later... I've tanked everything up to and including Kalecgos and Felmyst, and the very same people who scoffed at me because I was a paladin and not a warrior...Well, they still wipe on Teron.

I think some of you considered rubbing it at their faces? I definitely thought of that, but I decided not to. Guess I had to be above them if I wanted to keep going with a clean conscience.

There's still struggle. Took me 1 week of parses, discussion and going against a paladin who doesn't know what he's doing to convince my guild that I'm a viable tank for all SWP content(said tankadin doesn't believe RD works on Kalec...). Been there, done that.Next step: telling the tank officer that taking 4% more damage on brut makes as much difference as doing 2.3 more dps because of that 0,4% higher dot uptime.


Even with those aside, even with the few disadvantages we still have, i don't trade this for anything in the game.
Nothing beats the feeling of saying "just pull everything, i'm bored", and making it work. Or hearing "I like when Chiv tanks, makes it so easy."
Or "holy shit I can dps bloodboil!", or even handling a misspull where suddenly 1 annoying trash pull became "the whole fuckin room!", and adapting to it flawlessly.
Nothing beats the feeling that I've made work when people disbelieved, and nothing beats the feeling of knowing i'm good at what I do.
(gee, and i'm not even a pre-bc pally :p)