Being your party's tank in the World of Warcraft is a notoriously difficult business, all the more if it will be your first time being in this high-risk role.

Now, in case the tutorials out there (and their number-crunching) aren't your cup of tea, Morn over at the WoW Europe official forums put his Java programming skills to good use to create the Tanking Simulation app.

As its name implies, this application simulates the damage a tank receives from a boss, while calculating factors like class abilities (Holy Shield, Redoubt, Shield Block, etc.) As Morn explains, the application does so by "running 10.000 swings on the tank, and keeping track of damage taken, crushing blows taken, double crushing blows taken (a killer for a tank) and more." The app currently works for Druids, Paladins, and Warriors, with the author noting these interesting observations from previous tests:

• It turns out a Druid with comparable stats takes about 10% more overall damage than a Paladin and about 15% more than a Warrior.
• Also, for Paladins Redoubt tends to be active 20% of the time (at a 2 second attack speed) but provides little to no actual block.
• Shield Block (nor Holy Shield) doesn't provide crushing immunity until the boss attacks slower than once every 2.5 second, but at a 2 second attack speed it does reduce the amount you get crushed to around 1% of the time.
• Once a Paladin reaches over 102.4 avoidance with Holy Shield up, he takes less crushing blows than a Warrior, only about 0.1% of the time