Warning: navelgazing follows.
Things have been rather sparse or, at best, fluffy around here lately. Why? Nib said it better than me. I just plain don’t have a thing to talk about because I haven’t done anything new in weeks. Breezing through the first six bosses or smashing against Putricide and, well, supposedly the Princes are on farm, but our luck hates them – we’ve gotten bitten two weeks in a row with the known bug where they summon important parts of the fight in the hallway instead of in their room; last week, it was Dark Nuclei, and I got by because I learned when to look for them, but now Valanar’s started summoning beach balls in the hallway. Add some attendance concerns on top of all that and it’s just become a weekly grind of breeze -> facesmash -> repair -> breeze -> facesmash -> repair. Tried to do Ulduar hardmodes on a raid night and 6 people signed up; did ToGC-10 for a little while, at least, and ran into the wall that is Faction Champs. I pretty much only log onto my DK for the facesmash repetitions; I need frost badges badly – 180+ of them – but I can’t even bring myself to do the dailies anymore.
In short, I’m halfway between frustrated and bored. Maybe I just need a week off or something.
A few days ago, Dechion mentioned the idea of "throwing everything up and keeping what sticks." (I bet now the pic of some sticky hand things makes sense.) Twice now, I’ve basically gone through an entire expansion with a single alt – granted, in TBC, it was an abbreviated amount of time, as I joined just before 2.3.2. After TBC, I immediately switched my main to a DK with no hesitation; my warlock languishes at 73, where – let’s be honest – she probably isn’t going to move up from anytime soon. I’m starting to think I might change again, because my DK is starting to lose his stickiness.
So who’s sticky?
- My warlock? When the class changes came out and I realized how much they were going to buff my favorite spec, I went demo on her again, only to find that, well, the urge to stick to her wasn’t there. I throw the pet at the mobs, I throw the magic, and the magic is gone. Leveling her would be hell for leather. Has completely lost her sticky, much like an old toy.
- My death knight? WotLK was a rollercoaster of a time to be a death knight. Overpowered, underpowered, middle of the road, one-and-only flavor-of-the-month specs, other specs utterly nerfed into oblivion for entire patch levels. It’s a little mentally exhausting. Plus I switched roles and I did it fairly thoroughly. Hell, I barely remember how to DPS anymore. Is my DK losing his sticky? Maybe.
- My rogue? You’ve never met a bigger failrogue than me. I really need to just use this guy to farm junkboxes for my DK’s insanity. Not sticky.
- My warrior? I don’t level this toon much, but when I do, it’s always a fun time. As a DK tank I’m a little envious of all the fun buttons warriors have to push (Vampiric Blood just isn’t all that appealing when I could be Thunder-Clapping or Shockwaving or Last-Standing or Shield-Walling or Devastating or, or, or…). The announcement of an alternative to Titan’s Grip is also nice – I admit I’m a fan of single-handed weapons, but they’d need a serious boost to keep up with the stat boosts alone from TG right now. However, with my warrior, it’s just finding the urge to level her. In short, she’s sticky, but not enough yet.
- My hunter? I want to get into my hunter, I really do. I have many hunter blogs in my RSS reader. I just can’t summon up the mojo to level her past 45. Unsticky.
- My shaman? I was leveling my shaman pretty consistently for a while; come hell or high water, I was determined to get him out of Outlands. And out I got him, and now he’s parked at 68 in Valiance Keep, where I keep telling myself I’m going to take that resto spec and go heal some instances. I really do keep telling myself that. Inconsistent stickiness.
- My priest? My priest has been my little side project for a while now. I really only mention her at any length to Tart, who is my pocket advice priest. ("Oh, God, where do I put these talent points?!") And as you can probably surmise from her Discipline spec, I’ve been leveling her almost solely through instances. It’s not entirely instances, of course – whenever she reaches a new level, I gather every newly-available dungeon quest available for the dungeons in my queue list, and usually can gain a level or two from those – but she’s only level 20 (on the verge of dinging 21). She’s got a long way to go to even be considered a main, even moreso than my warrior. But the important part is that she’s fun. It may be just because of the complete change in role – Brynhild is only for healing, at least for now – but I like that healing rush, the feeling of keeping a group alive against odds that they probably shouldn’t have lived through (like three underleveled DPS and me taking on VanCleef because we’d waited 20 minutes for no tank). But right now, Brynhild is very sticky. Those twirly red braids may as well be made of glue.
- An alt I don’t have yet? At this point, if I don’t have an alt of some class, I’m probably waiting on Cataclysm. I fully intend to level a worgen druid or mage, which is the main reason I don’t have either of those. As for paladins, well. I’d love to have a paladin, and if I could get one past level 15 without getting utterly sick and tired of him, I probably would by now. Maybe once 4.0 hits and new baby paladins have a button to push, I’ll look into it, but right now, paladins bore me senseless to try and level.
The dilemma is: if I focus entirely on one alt, I risk burnout on that alt (see also: DK, warlock, shaman), but if I don’t focus on that alt, I’m an incredibly slow leveler. At least in my opinion. I know plenty of people whose progress feels like they’re speed demons, and I figure I’m the slow one. Or is this all pointless wankery – do I just stick with my DK? I mean, he is my only 80, my primary source of cash and heirlooms, and my only actively raiding toon. And no one can deny that we need all the tanks we can get – but I’m looking to maximize my fun here, as well as provide something useful to my guild.
It’s a set of questions that I don’t have any easy answers to. If anyone else is going through the same thing, I’d appreciate any insights you have.
Stop used to be a warlock, then he was a death knight; first he was Horde, then he was Alliance again, and now he's Horde again. For good this time. Lok'tar ogar! 
Well as you noticed I am going the Druid route, and I am having a blast with it.
I fully inteded to wait and level him as a Worgen, but I suppose I can just do a race change later. I'll still go back and do the starting zones for each race after Cataclysm hits, but I figure for now i'll keep myself busy healing my way up.
Sounds like you’re having the most fun with the priest & warrior. I say do both. When you get tired of one, switch. This isn’t a race. It’s a game. Do what you enjoy, not what you feel you have to do.
I, personally, love the priest class & it’s even more fun with the dungeon finder. Even bad groups can be funas a learning experience. But my main is a priest & I have 3 priest alts so I might be a little biased. Druids are a lot of fun too, once you get past level 20 or so. But I do agree about the pally. I have yet to get one past level 18 and I’ve tried at least 4 times.
Well hey!
I know what ye feel, maybe I’m even in a worse situation.
Lets start with me. :p
My first main was a dk, now in full T9 and those better-than-T9 shoulders and helmet. Had lots of fun tanking, but then got a bit tiring, so now I’m trying to be a dps with my hunter, who I can’t really get to 80 coz I1m lazy as hell.
I like being a pew pew beastmastah, but my 44 lock is tempting, ya know, both are rangeed dps n stuff, but its a whole new story tho.
As sidetracks I have a druid, rogue and a shammy.
And I’m not stuck on just the what-class-to-play level.
As a result of my “neutrality”, I have chars on both blue and red side, and can’t even chose between these.
And Cataclysm is heavily affecting my opinion. ;L
So now lets jump on You.
I guess ye should keep up the tanking when it’s like really important, and you can spend your spare time with yer alts.
As I can tell, you should go with the priest, sounds like ye like it the most.
And!
Try to level your hunter to 51, even if you sweat trolls and murlocs, ya gotta try farmin’ AV with a hunter, prolly best with engineering.
And never forget to do retro stuff, that keeps the fun alive.
Hope I wasn’t completely useless. :F
Cya
-Teh Donutman
I know what you mean about stickiness. If ever I did return to WoW, I probably wouldn’t look twice at my Alliance characters, even though those are in their 70s with content still to do. I’d be more interested in playing my neglected Horde characters (gnomes notwithstanding). I wonder if I could resist the urge to restart again, and just pick up where I left off? Doubtful. ^^;
I go back to my roots whenever I start to get burnt out on a toon. My roots being when I was leveling my warlock and didn't know about Elitist Jerks or raiding specs or raiding stats or which zone is the fastest to level. I just followed my gut and explored things. Not just exploring zones, but picking talents by myself, figuring out the rotations by myself, doing quests without things like Lightheaded to guide me. It's kind of fun, actually, to talent yourself by your gut and end up, once you ding 80, being pretty close to the actual "accepted" talent spec.
Right now, my ele shaman is about to do Wrathgate, and it's totally more exciting than when my druid (2nd 80) did it. When my druid did it, it was more "oh yeah, epic quest chain that rewards a cool cinematic and a lot of experience." My shaman's busy enjoying the journey. And she's sticking like a cinema floor to shoes.
My basic advice when trying to level a toon is to forget about endgame completely. Stop trying to grow up, enjoy the kids' meals, etc. So what if you level slowly, at least enjoy it! Don't think about what she'll do when she's 80. Don't go peeking onto sites of how to properly level a class, and don't go looking for specs until you're in your 70s. Just do it your way. For mains, I do classic/BC achievements solo, specifically the dungeon ones. LBRS was actually fun on my lock trying to figure out the map and how to get to places.
I am definitely a one toon gal. I started with a warrior then fell in love with my mage who I played for a year or more and now I am totally resto druid hooked for pve and pvp. Stick with the class you enjoy most and receive the least frustration from:)