To Alt or not to Alt

This whole holiday thing got me a little bit lazy in updating this site and just in general. I’m just not that much into New year and Christmas and everything. So before we get to the topic of today let’s get it over with:

Happy New Year, thanks to everyone who supported me in any way since I started this blog. I really appreciate it, even if it’s just dropping by or writing a comment. As fun as blogging is as a little self therapy, it’s just so nice to get a response.

And now on with the show:

Holidays usually tend to slow raiding  a little bit down. My guild wasn’t lazy though, we cleared just everything and killed Sartharion with 2 drakes up yesterday (yay!). But anyways, holidays are often plenty of free time and a good opportunity to level up some alts.

But why level an alt at all?

The game: This game is beautiful. I’m not into leveling that much but getting back to all those starter areas is just beautiful. Finding quests you’ve never done before is so cool. And the pace of leveling has really changed with all the XP changes for the old world and BC. And the quest design gets better and better as you level up. For me the first two characters were just pure fun to level. Everything later felt much much more like a big grind.

The Knowledge: I find this the most important part of leveling and alt. You will just have a much greater overall understanding of how other classes work and what abilities they have. It helps in Arenas, it helps in raids. The big caveat though is: Many classes are totally different at the endgame than in the lower levels. So please: If you have a level 24 shaman don’t tell my how to do my job. I myself love playing tanks. I got a druid up to 70 and tanked and healed karazhan and ZA. This has improved my healing a lot. My situational awareness is much better, I see the difference between good and bad tanking much faster. And whenever I tank I try to be as healer friendly as possible.

The Goal: My goal for leveling an alt is always the endgame. I just can’t put time and effort into a character I know I won’t play to the level cap and do heroics or raid casually. Excluded is the occasional 1-20 alt with my girlfriend. The second goal: Professions. It’s just so great to have professions like alchemy, jewelcrafting and enchanting leveled up. It saves money at helps to pile up that gold.

The Fun: Playing alts for me is always getting to know people on my realm or getting to know guildmates better. You’ll meet nice people while doing instance runs. You’ll have very quality time with guild members far away from the sometimes stressful 25 man raids. Playing an alt is a very social thing for me. And after all I just have more fun with my shaman if I don’t just play him all the time every day I log in.

Everyone levels alts, here’s how I do it:

The Decision: I’m very picky. I google for a good name. I do research on which would be the best race for my desired class. I do a little reading on the class and its ability and then I start doing some levels. Many classes just aren’t my cup of tee. Other classes like mage or hunter are insanely fast to level, so I’ll be somewhat 40-60 until a realize that’s not my class. And some classes just suck my in instantly. But my greatest inspiration for starting a new class is always seeing other players in a raid situation and the desire to do that cool stuff also.

The Tools: Leveling up like a noob was pure fun. Now I lay my leveling experience pretty much into the hands of carbonite quest or tourguide. I log out at Inns. And I level very often with my girlfriend, which just doubles the fun.

And I’ll end with

The downside: Alts are a huge time sink. And especially if you’re a raider I can totally see how people can just stick to their main character forever. Raiding eats up a lot of time and I understand everyone who doesn’t see the point of leveling up another character at all. And there are many players out there who just chain-level everything up to the level cap and don’t even master their main character. If you find a good balance though you can learn a lot from leveling up and maybe raiding with another character.

My team at this moment is a 78 prot warrior, mage, rogue and druid around 60-70. I’m just leveling my warrior right now and I’m having a blast. I might even dedicate a post to casually tanking when I finally reach 80. I tanked with my bear tank a lot, but while feral druids didn’t win much in regards of diversity and fun in tanking, prot warriors are a pure joy in WotLK. I can’t wait to bring this guy into Naxx10 and tank.

What do you see in levelign and alt? Are you an alt-aholic? Do you have a main and just this ONE twink? What’s your goal when leveling and alt? Do you like leveling alts that are completly different from your main char or do you stick with dps, tanks or healers? And please tell my what alt you’re working on right now and what you enjoy about this class.