Paladin

Tanking in a massively multiplayer game like World of Warcraft is when certain classes (Monks, Death Knights, Warriors, Paladins and Druids, in the case of WoW) choose a specialization and perform a role that is intended to keep the monsters in a dungeon or raid focused on said tank, and not instead on the healers or damage dealers in the group. You may already have known that, but it can be useful to establish basics right up front.

Tanking requires a lot from a player, especially when the group is all-too-happy to hoist responsibility for the success of the group right onto your potentially uncertain shoulders. It's a tough job, but we'll help you get started.

Too often I find myself falling back to the same set of talents, even though "cookie cutter" builds are supposed to be a thing of the past. Am I doing something wrong, or could it be the talents that are at fault (or could it be both)?

Now that the Public Test Realms (PTR) have the Hellfire Citadel trinkets available for testing, let's take a look! There's a pretty good mix this tier -- some straightforward stat pieces, some funky proc/on-use ones, and a few really creative ones that should be a lot of fun to play with.

This week we brush off the minor mastery changes up on the 6.2 PTR and address an issue that has been festering for years: the unremarkable Exorcism. What's wrong with it? What can be done to change it? Let's take a look.

No matter how many moving parts an encounter has, how it is ultimately tanked can be boiled down to one of a few formulas that Blizzard repeats over and over again when designing fights. As human beings, one of our evolutionary survival skills is recognizing patterns – many times, if you're like me, you'll be tanking a new encounter and think to yourself “hang on, I've seen this before.”

Let's talk about healing our way through Blackrock Foundry and toppling Blackhand from his fiery crucible. We're looking at all 10 bosses today, so I'm going to keep things brief.

Update: Blackrock Spire is now open and available for play.

This week I’m going to shift gears from general tutorials and instead do a quick look at tips and tricks for tanking half of the bosses in Blackrock Foundry. As they say, it’s better to strike while the iron is hot -- BRF has been out long enough that I’m sure interest in the place is beginning to cool off.

Welcome to Lightsworn, Blizzard Watch’s regular paladin column.