Jousting

Got to thinking earlier. Whilst reading about WoW, you're bound to come across discussions of how there's a general feeling that there's a shortage of tanks and healers in the world.

My jury is still out on that one, as to whether it is truly a shortage, or just that most tanks/healers learn pretty quickly to dislike PuG's as everybody and his brother tries to lure them in even if the guy and his brother both suck worse than the othe Could just be that tanks are smartly selective in who they run with. Or, maybe its just a shortage because the game makes it rough on them, and people would rather roll a hunter and eat waffles with Auto-Shot on and still deliver some major pain.

Either way, most discussions of the shortage visit the fact that a true Tanking build is very slow to level, difficult to grind gold with, difficult to solo quest with, and difficult to PvP with.

For healers, there was some lovin in a recent patch that gives the healers some bonus spell damage that's proportional to their +healing capability. Outstanding, more reason to be a healer, gotta be a good thing for the community at large.

Well what about our tanks? No real equivalent that makes sense here.

But then an idea hit me....here you are, with a giant hulk of a toon, wearing armor that weighs more than Amava does including her gear and soaking wet with her whole gold stash in her pocket.

Historically, that sort of beautiful plate armor was used in jousting, where by two contestants face off on horseback at opposite ends of a field and try to knock eachother off their horses using lances.

Maybe some PvP jousting event that has lots of sweet tanking plate rewards? How about a weekly jousting tournament, that's a hybrid concept like the Fishing Tournament and Arenas. Use a ladder system to pair people off against similarly skilled players. Provide small rewards to the low-end, and nicer rewards accessible faster to those earning more points at the higher end of the spectrum.

You might have to do something to make it intersting to more than just tanks, otherwise it probably would not be too popular. Include some rewards that are good enough for non tanking folks to want to participate. Badges of Justice?

But here you have an example of real historical PvP combat that heavily favors our tanks, so why not throw them a frikin bone.