Several years ago I made a Pandaren monk that I played for a while before eventually losing interest and shelving her. I ended up ultimately deleting her and hadn’t felt any interest in making a new panda in a while. I have nothing against Pandarens, I think they’re an awesome race and Mists of Pandaria is one of my favorite expansions. I actually missed the releases of Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor because they came out during my hiatus from World of Warcraft, so it really was a whole new world to me when I came back.
For the past month or so I’d noticed that it was rare to be in a random dungeon with a Pandaren. Now and then there was one in the group, but I didn’t see many in dungeons or in the world in general. With realm sharding and all that, there could certainly be a lot more than I see, but it was rare to have a panda in the room, as it were. When there was a Pandaren and it was a female I found myself impressed by how fierce they sounded and looked while fighting and I wondered why I hadn’t played my monk more. I eventually realized that perhaps monk was not the right class of panda for me to play.
The creation of a new Pandaren for me came after a couple peculiar events. One evening when I logged on my lightforged draenei paladin, I realized that Stormwind was being attacked by a large group of Horde players. That sort of thing happened a lot when I first started playing Warcraft and PVP worked differently, but it seems more rare these days. There were many people expressing their anger at the attack in chat, but I actually found it kind of reminiscent of the “old days” and didn’t see a problem with it.
However, I was curious as to why the Horde decided to attack Stormwind in such a manner so I decided to make a Horde character on that realm the next day to see if I could find any answers. Although I didn’t really look to see what realms the Horde players were from so maybe it was a silly idea. Regardless, I didn’t have a Horde character on that realm yet, so it was past time I fixed that.
To expedite my journey on a new character, I decided I’d make a vulpera warrior because they start at level 20. But then when I logged in and selected create new character it was randomly on Pandaren. Eyeing the female Pandaren as she went through her idle motions, I decided that what the heck, I’d make a Pandaren instead. Pandas start at level 1 and not level 20 so by the time I got her to Orgrimmar, it was unlikely anyone would be talking about the previous night’s venture into Stormwind City. By that time though, I didn’t particularly care anymore.
I was torn between making another shaman or another warrior but then chose warrior because I wanted to see just how fierce a panda could get. Plus, warrior is one of my favorite classes and what I have the most characters in. I customized her with the red panda appearance, chose the name Kaingo, and my latest warrior was born!
It’s been several years since I did the Pandaren starter area so it was nice to go through it all again and be reminded of the story. I put my heirlooms on and she was almost level 20 by the time I left the island and chose to join the Horde. By the time I left, I was already in love with Kaingo and the Pandaren warrior way of fighting and I knew I wouldn’t be deleting this panda.
Fury is my favorite specialty for warriors and I must say, Kaingo rocks the spec either questing solo or doing dungeons. I love the way she moves and her voice and her ferocity. I also loving being the only panda in the room as I haven’t done a dungeon yet with another Pandaren in it, male or female.
I’ve considered trying to tank on Kaingo because I have so many warriors and feel pretty experienced with them. I even switched her to the tank spec to practice with it and I find it quite versatile and effective.
Alas, I still haven’t worked up the courage yet to try tanking because I know other players can be unkind to tanks, to put it mildly. Perhaps someday I’ll be brave enough but for now I’m pretty happy being the panda in the room and kicking butt with furry paws.
Srinity 