Why Do I Play this Class? - Redux

One of my comments yesterday (Hi Noosh!) said I hardly play the warrior and warlock anymore. And he’s right. So, here are the final three 70s that I have. And in this group are my two favorites.

Priest

The Story

Remember what I wanted to make first instead of a warrior? Right. Priest. After the warrior and the warlock were at their max level, I decided I needed to do something when I wasn’t attempting to raid or playing at max level. I have a leveling partner (druid) so it shouldn’t be a big deal.

The story continues as of January 16, 2007. At the time my intention was to level my warrior to 70 first and fulfill a main tanking role. However, with the folks I was generally playing with at the time, my priest would be the better choice. I stuck firmly by my choice and eventually convinced my guild that I would not abandon progress on my priest to help them out “just for a little bit” with a tank for an instance.

What I like

I sometimes feel the most useful on my priest. Tanks and healers are a symbiotic relationship. Neither can function without the other. I don’t want to imply that I’m more important than the warrior, but I sometimes feel that way. I really appreciate the complexities of playing a priest that didn’t really exist for me with either the warlock or the warrior. This became a game of how well I could estimate what was needed now, what was needed in 5 seconds, what was needed within the next minute, and so on.

Recently I’ve done a little PVP and I’m really enjoying what, at least in my battle group, is a void. I don’t see many people healing (on Alliance side) much, and I feel I can be an asset in this area. And I like being asked to switch to a priest from an alt because someone “needs a really good healer for Heroic Instance X.”

It’s also very cool to have been my first to 70, and thus my most played at 70. That means he’s got the best gear of any of my toons. And that makes him even more fun to play than someone in crappy “I just dinged 70” gear.

Hunter

The Story

My first horde character was a hunter. And hunters can solo. And I wanted something to do when I was just fooling around. Unfortunately, my hunter languished around 37 for a very long time. It was only once the expansion came out and I decided I needed a jewel crafter that I had the moment where I figured out how to get one without all the pain of massive leveling.

I had this neglected miner/engineer hunter at level 37. I could get his skill up to 300 with little or no stress. And at that point, I knew I wanted to make it to 375, and that meant leveling. So I did.

My hunter rapidly turned into one of my favorite characters to play.

What I like

I like still being able to get onto the hunter and solo. I like that I have many answers for everything in a PVE sense. I love being able to effectively chain trap and crowd control anything. Having a pet makes farming very simple. And being the first character with an epic flying mount further simplifies that. And I totally was passionately am in love with feign death. Get out of jail, here I come!

If my guild would allow me to swap mains, I would. But as I said above, the priest is just too darned good a healer to consider letting the hunter be primary.

To some degree, my hunter is the most fun I have. I don’t watch timers well enough to be a kick butt warlock. If DPS is my game, I need to use the hunter to pump it out. Raiding on my priest is fun, but I don’t often state that after a raid. Whenever I get to raid with my hunter, I tell everyone who will listen (and some who won’t) how much fun I’ve just had.

Rogue

The Story

Back several months before Burning Crusade, a group of five of us got together to make midgets to play once weekly. The rules were: the five had to make a viable five-man and they all need to be midgets (i.e. short – dwarves or gnomes). We were only allowed to play these little dudes when we were all on, which quickly fell apart. So my little rogue stayed at about level 16 for almost a year. With patch 2.3, I took advantage of the increased leveling speed. And now he’s 70. And. In. Greens. And. Blues.

What I like

Did I mention get out of jail free? Vanish FTW. I’m also enjoying the new (to me) play style being right up in their faces (er..butts?) to get the job done. And there are so many situational tricks to be employed to let your group last just a bit longer. I’ve not begun to plumb the depths of the rogue, but I’m really liking it.