[Paladin] So who gets the Last Laugh...

Last night my guild ran 25-man Naxx. It was a full clear, as usual, but we had something happen that wasn't usual at all. We lost a tank. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. We have two people who regularly MT and we also have a regular OT, meaning that for many runs we have three properly specced tanks. We also have a feral druid who often respecs from kitty to bear for us. But last night one of our MTs bowed out because he had to work on his thesis (completely understandable) and our feral wasn't around, so we were running with only two tanks.

For most of the raid this was perfectly fine. Even on Patchwerk we just had our ret paladin toss on tanking gear and serve as the second soaker. But the officers were a little concerned about Kel’Thuzad. One of our healers dropped out later in the run too, so we were short healing for Sapphiron. There was some talk about one of the officers bringing his resto shaman for Sapph and respeccing his warrior to tank adds for KT, but his shaman still needed drops off KT and his shaman is his main.

So I told the other officers that I could bring my paladin and spec him however they needed. I’ve always raided 25-man on my moonkin, and getting more loot for my druid was a non-issue for me. We use EPGP for loot distribution and there were two people ahead of me in line for the T7.5 helm, so even if both head tokens that dropped off Kel were for mages/rogues/druids/DKs I still wouldn’t be able to get it. I’ve been lucky enough to already get the caster cape, the caster ring, and the Torch of Holy Fire off of him, so there was literally no way I would get anything for my main off of him tonight. It made the most sense for me to be the one to switch to an alt.

The other officers agreed, so I came in on Gillien to heal Sapphiron as holy, my preferred spec, and then I hearthed out to respec to prot. This was, oddly enough, my first time ever speccing prot on him, but I’ve read a hell of a lot about tanking, and I’ve done a lot of tanking for somebody who’d never specced for it.

I put together my brand spanking new prot build, suited up (I was uncrittable, though admittedly not much else), and headed in to be the second OT on Kel’Thuzad.

My health was pretty low, and there was one moment where I briefly feared for my life and used my bubble wall, but I lived and KT was a fairly clean kill. I got two adds on me and kept their attention just fine (and I didn’t do anything stupid like die to a void zone). My action bar was a little funky having not discovered the optimal way of lining up my buttons for the standard 969 tanking rotation, but our main paladin tank assured me that as long as I kept up Holy Shield and smacked the adds with Hammer of the Righteous I should be fine, and I was.

And then Kel’Thuzad dropped Last Laugh. He dropped a mage/rogue/druid/DK helm too, which a rogue got (yay, one less person my druid has to compete with), but Last Laugh was the drop that prompted the most discussion. Best in slot tanking weapon for paladins/warriors? Our paladin tank already had it. Our ret paladin already had it too. Our other OT is a DK who already had Betrayer of Humanity for his weapon.

Three DKs made off-spec/greed rolls for it.

I wasn’t going to even roll. I was on my alt, and it would have been off-spec for me as well, but the guys in officer chat were telling me to roll because I was the one who actually went out and tanked the adds. I still wasn’t going to though, which resulted in our guild master asking over vent if the DKs would mind passing the axe over to me since there was the chance I’d end up tanking for them again in the future (oh noes!). They said sure, and I typed into raid chat that I wasn’t going to ask for it… and then the axe was master looted into my bag...

So now I’m currently specced prot with the best in slot tanking weapon for my class, but I look at the rest of my gear and laugh, for though I’m uncrittable by Wrath standards, I’m still wearing five pieces of equipment from Burning Crusade. My wrist and waist have to go. So do both my rings and one of my trinkets. My tanking set is so not worthy of Last Laugh, and the fact I have it is so ridiculous it’s making me... laugh?

I won’t be online tonight, but it looks like Thursday after raid I’m going to have to run some heroics to fix that. I understand there are some very nice drops in Azjol-Nerub and Old Kingdom so I’ll start there. I’ll probably stay prot at least until our usual Friday night 10-man Naxx. Then depending on what they need me for I’ll either stay prot or go back to holy. I’m sure I’ll be back to holy soon enough, but it would be fun to tank a few heroics or even a raid first.