In the course of leveling Aemma, my prot warrior, all the way to 51 tonight, I keep going back to my self-doubt.  Am I doing this wrong?  Is my rotation right?  Is my gearing correct?  omgtheywantmetotankZFnowai - things of that nature.

And in several days of mulling this over, I've centered my mullings around two camps - either I am not completely happy with Aemma because I don't know what I'm doing or because being unsure of how to tank is hard.  Or perhaps it's really one big camp of "I don't know how to tank so I don't like this".

While I am sad to say that I didn't level all the way to 80 as holy, I did level holy from 58 on.  I knew from the start that Anea would be a healer, but I was only specced and leveled as a healer for twenty-two levels.  Sure, I didn't know what I was doing right in the beginning, but I learned.  Trial and error, after all.  Eventually I figured things out and I grew confident in my abilities.  I also had a pocket tank, Lus - I felt more secure because not only was he in my group and was a familiar face, but also he was my tank and he wouldn't tear my face off if I messed up and let him die.  So, you would imagine that after so many levels of being leveled prot that I would have a handle on things and feel semi-comfortable in my shoes hooves that it wouldn't be an issue.

I have only had one foray into tanking thus far - I pugged Zul'Farrak a few days ago and it went alright.  There were no deaths or even close calls - we had an excellent healer.  (Sidethought: as a tank do you measure the success of a run in number of deaths?) I didn't feel as though it was a great run, tank-wise.  This largely centers around the fact that I didn't feel in control 90% of the time.  I don't know if this is what it's like as a tank or just something that I'll feel better about as I tank more (the resident tank is currently offshore and not available for a consult.)  Getting into a tanking rotation is something I need to work on.  In fact, I've made a list of things that I feel I need to work on that feels rather extensive and I wonder if I shouldn't already be familiar with some of the items anyway.

This presents a problem for me - I have invested in this character enough to get her to this level, which is nothing to sneeze at.  I've tried multiple times at this class - or I've banged my head on this wall long enough that I have gotten this far, I should say.  I worry that I won't feel comfortable tanking the way that I feel comfortable healing.  If you gave me the choice right now, I would choose to heal any instance before I would tank it.  I don't want to dumb down what we healers do, but it would seem a thousand times easier for me to heal something than tank it.

Perhaps I've built up tanking enough that not only do I want to be one, but I've scared myself off of it as well?  Have I grown too dependent on being part of a team and I'm unable to function solo?  As soon as I wonder this, I think surely it's not the case, because I've had plenty of alts that were played to a decently high level alone without being part of a team.  But I can't help but wonder.

Semi-related closing thought: I've heard it said many times that people whose main is a tank or healing role will most often choose to have a DPS-specced alt - y/n?

I have been MIA from Warcraft again.  I'll be making a reappearance tonight as I roll a baby pally (Alliance side) and attempt to be satisfied with how she looks and not delete and reroll her millions of times.