Paladin! Hortis was my accidental 80. I never really sat down and said I was going to push and level her to 80 it just happened. I had done some leveling with my pally and enjoyed tanking but the original dungeon finder took a long time to help you build groups and than you still had to travel to your location, summon people, watch as the healer went afk, dps bailed, and so you had to build the group up again. Questing was the way to level by I didn't feel inclined to questing on Hortis.
Than Blizzard introduced the dungeon finder. Instead of spending the day trying to track down enough people to get a daily group done on the druid and maybe another toon before calling it quits for the night I was able to blast though my daily dungeon and than try to find something else to do. I don't farm herbs, mobs, do dailies, or really any of those things people do to make gold. Instead I would hop on Hortis and run dungeons with her. And other than a few quests in Hellfire and Borean Tundra, Hortis leveled entirely though the dungeon finder. It was a shock to realize that she was level 80. So I worked to get her geared up and she even tanked in ICC.
While I bought Hortis duel-spec I never used it during Wrath. I loved pally tanking at that time. There was something about watching all those lights and hearing all those sounds that kept me enthralled. I also liked that she had a rotation. It was a contrast from druid tanking which would eventually dissolve into maul and swipe as fast as you can. A pally was about using all their abilities as soon as they were off cooldown and something was always off cooldown. It was predictable but still fun. I also really enjoyed the prepull checklist. Sacred shield, holy shield, divine plea and pull. And than there was the fun of running with a disc priest. I wanted to take damage so that I would be healed and so gain more mana so I could cast more stuff, make sure stuff was beating on me so I'd take more damage.
Than Cata happened. I really wanted to like the changes to pallys. Unfortuantely Hortis just felt weak and I never got over it. I managed to level her to 85 and really gave tanking a good shot but it just didn't feel right anymore. So I gave ret a try. And promptly went back to prot. My last spec to try was holy. I loved it. I had heard that healing was more difficult in Cata I felt like my pally could heal anything. I think part of why I love being a pally healer is how easy the spells are for me to understand and when I heal something I see the difference that it makes. For a time I thought Hortis would be my main but I knew the lack of the versatility that having two specs I really enjoyed would annoy me. I like to be able to switch my role to fill a need and I couldn't do that with Hortis. But I could still enjoy her as an alt.
Raid finder is a blast as a pally. I know healing meters are not a good indicator of how well your healing. But you can't argue that it's not fun when you sit through Ultraxion as a healer and watch those who got the red and green crystals destroy the meters and than you get your paws on the blue crystal and giggle in glee when you smash the meters to smithereens in just a few casts of holy radiance. And than you keep casting. Don't judge. I have to find enjoyment from running RF somewhere because otherwise I fall asleep.
Not much has changed about holy paladins for Mists. New talents and some different spells but the heals are the same. I really look forward to giving prot and ret another try since I've heard there's been some good changes there but I'm really happy with how Holy is right now.
At the half-way point of my long litany of alts and their tales. I'm not sure this is quite what I had originally intended with this idea but I'm almost done as well. Not much more to do but to keep chugging away.
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