Holy Downtime.

I've been kinda quiet of late. To be honest, I've put Wulf in semi-retirement to focus on my new Paladin (more on him in a bit). With Wulf, I've hit the stage that none of the instances offer a substantial upgrade in gear over what he currently uses, and having beat them all comfortably they don't offer too much challenge.

Raiding might be an alternative, but at this time, the only raid instance we go near is Karazhan, which is a 10-man instance. Given that we currently have about 27 people attuned to Kara and four of those are Hunters, I really can't be bothered fighting for spots. We're not short of Damage Dealers in CD, but we kind of lack decent tanks and Healers.

Which is where Ulushnar, my new Draenei Paladin comes in. I started him during the opening week of The Burning Crusade, but I didn't get far with him at that time due to the Draenei starting zone being swarming with folks who had similar ideas. After playing Wulf intensively for two months, I felt like it was time for a change in style. Coupled with the fact that we really lack tanks atm, I thought I'd give one a go.

I'm enjoying the change in style. Paladins are pure Melee, unlike the primarily-ranged Hunters. Whilst a Hunter can peel one or two mobs away from a group at leisure, and reset the encounter if he gets overwhelmed, the Paladin has no choice but to get stuck in. Luckily in this respect, Paladins have a variety of healing and protective spells, tough armor and strong melee abilities with which to wear down their foes. I've quite often managed to handle 2-3 opponents who were 2 levels above Ulushnar with careful management of his abilities.

Currently I'm at lvl 29 with him, and with a bit of perseverance, I'm hoping to get him all the way to lvl 70. Ultimately I'm hoping to use him as a Tank in CD, but that's going to require a lot of work to get him there and then get him geared.