Hello there everyone, today’s Aspect of the Hare is brought to you by Weyland-Yutani, Proud Sponsors of Going Fast! Also it’s guest written by Mr. Pike, aka Mister Adequate, who gracefully, benificently, most magnanimously stepped in to provide content when Pike was busy having a long day at work.
Today I’d like to tell a story. When I was a young Master Adequate, naive and filled with dreams of being useful in instances, I mained a warrior. I did this for a long, long time. I liked being a warrior in WoW, just charge up to things and smack them in the face with a huge warhammer. It was simple, it worked, and I could hide behind my armor and shield if needed. Oh, I occasionally dabbled in other classes, of course, but aside from a long-lived hunter none of them ever pulled me away from being a warrior for long. I was a warrior the way Pike is a hunter – dedicated and single-minded.
Then, just to mess around and do Super Serious RP, I rolled a Blood Elf. A Belf Mage at that. Two years later, I’m still playing her every day and she is absolutely my main. It just feels so good to get mad deeps and be able to blame the tank if I get hurt. At heart, the great thing about being a mage is that you feel powerful. I’m a squishy clothy, sure, but I have all kinds of magical armor and Blink and invisibility and other things to get me out of trouble. Best of all I’ve made a macro that pops every support skill and item I’ve got, so I grow two feet taller, get about four different glows around me, and double my DPS for a short while. It feels great!
But a few years ago, if you’d have told me I’d be maining a mage and loving it, I’d have scoffed heartily at your presumption.
Has anyone else ever had a dramatic and unexpected class change? Did you actually try to change, or was it just something that happened? Or are you one of those weirdos who plays multiple classes as a matter of course?
First character I rolled was a Priest: it wasn’t even on my own account, I was borrowing a friend’s login while he worked night shifts. I really enjoyed it even though I was not over-skilled as a healer, shall we say? Once I laid out some of my own cash and got my own game I rolled a Hunter to a fair degree due to the influence of our gracious host(ess). However WotLK came along and I discovered Death Knights and, much to my eternal shame, found I liked the way they worked and their ability to survive and now I have three. Mind you I have to admit my account also has a Frost Mage, a Shadow Priest, a Combat Rogue aa I continue to like character variety and a full set of professions.
I keep coming back to hunters no matter what other class I try, and I like most of them in their own way. I’ve done some pally and DK raid-tanking, done dungeons on every class except rogues and shaman, but hunter is where the heart is.
Still and all…my raiding alt is a warlock (yeah, I kind of like pure ranged dps classes), an aff lock, and there will be times when playing here that I sometimes wonder if I missed my calling. I prefer dot classes in general, and aff locks are, of course, the sine qua non of WoW dotters. But man, I’ll get on a roll where everything is clicking, I get into a rhythm with the rotation, and I’m watching the target’s life slowly but inexorably slip away…and it just feels like I was born to play that spec.
Ah well, that might be why I love SV so much: you get some nice burst damage within the context of a quasi-DoT spec, if you will. Best of both worlds.
Way back in BC, Lus and I mained rogues. I think we were ok at it (I was perhaps average) and we were Blood Elves. Then I got the famous Anea Alt Bug and I rolled a Draenei priest (healer) and Lus humored me and rolled a human pally (tank) and mained those for years. Both very different from BE rogues. I have since switched to many an alt, mostly shaman and hunter, but that was the biggest and most dramatic switch we have made.