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Picking Your Alt

World of Warcraft Character Creation ScreenIn light of all the downtime, alts have been a pretty hot topic lately. Just about everyone I play with is working on one, and now a few people I know are even thinking about switching mains. I know I’ve been working my alts pretty hard recently. I went through a number of different classes before I decided I want to make the rogue my “main alt.” It got me thinking about the role that your main plays in picking your alt.There are a few ways to approach it. At first I decided I wanted to do the complete opposite of my Protection Paladin. After a bit of thought I decided this would probably be the Warlock. Unlike my Pally he’s a DPS class, he’s squishy, he’s ranged, and he has a pet. It seemed difficult to find something much more different. It turns out that this was a little too different. My play style was that of a tank, I would always pull more than I could handle, and it ended up being a fairly unpleasant experience. I was disappointed, but I decided it was time to try something else.

I then started my rogue. This was much better. Leather armor meant she could take a little more of a beating, and she was a melee class, so as that was certainly in my comfort zone. Turned out I really enjoyed the class. Play style actually wasn’t far off from my Paladin. Combat was actually more similar than I would have thought, just much faster. Instead of pulling mobs and counting on being the one that dies last, I just had to count on being the one that kills the other one first.

Once I got her to 30 I decided to try some other classes on for size. I’ve played shaman, druid, warrior, and priest all past 30. After all that I ended up going back to the rogue. It was simply too much fun. In the end I found picking a class that compliments your play style is a win. My recommendation would be to find that common link between what you enjoy and what other classes have to offer. For me it was getting up in peoples faces with melee classes. Maybe you want to stick with pet classes, or keep it at range, or stick with mana users. Whatever it is, I think common ground is a good thing.

What about you, what made you pick your alt? Is it similar or completely different from your main? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to grind out a level and a half to 70!

Reader Comments (54)

i hav 5 alts 18 fury worior 35 combat rogue 37 lock 55 druid tank 58 frost mage and one main 70 hunter BM the only i sticked to i loved the fact that i had a pet to do my bidding people say rogues are fun i am not disagreeing but i just didnt like playing as a rogue i mad a worrior on;y because i thought that you can only make a dath knight with a worrior but once i foudn ou t tha wasn true i dropd him i lveld my lock over time i usauly just went when i was bored druids were the clas for me i wnt from 28 to 55 healing combined with mell awsome but till than i had a70 hunter allrayd and i gave in to the temptation to go on my hunter and get my gear and after running acouple instance with mage and fighting mages i saw the power of mages i started playing my mage it wasnt bad but i missed my hunter and at 38 i went to my hunter and been a hunter ever since i hav a bunch charaters but i didnt bond with anyone like i did with my hunter and after the blogs i read may give my mage another shot

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterehhhhhhh

well. i'm a 70 warrior, goin to spec prot when geear is good, and i have a 18 already its a shaman, also 24 lock and 21 priest, but i'm gonna stick with the shaman as alt because its a class good for everything and very fun to play

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenternebrakaneizzar

I have three mains. Does that make sense? All 70's: a prot warrior, a balance druid, and a resto shammie. All geared to play in Kara, with a few pieces of Kara and badge gear each. I play different alts to please my different moods, or sometimes to fill gaps in our heroics. I honestly don't have a favorite, and all three are called upon on a regular basis to help out. I will say that healing and tanking require a lot more thinking than spamming wrath. But spamming wrath can be a good thing after a long day!

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterFrazz

My main is a prot warrior and my main alt is a holy priest. Go figure :D

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterStuguy88

I've been having a hard time finding out what my alt should be. My main is a hunter and I took your approch of finding something similar with a warlock but I found it even more annoying because I had a pet again and it was to similar for me. I am trying out a shaman right now and it seems to be wroking great.

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterDimak

my main is a hunter and i tried playing a warroior and a preist and i hate them both i like my alt warlock cause it kinda of a lazy class you just DoT and sit there as you watch them slowly melt is so much fun XD

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterfurycow

i spelt warrior wrong i know

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterfurycow

Kind of on the same boat with, Frazz. I also have a balance druid 70 (which seems to be getting an overhaul by looking at the talent tree.) Also have a 62 shadow priest which has been put on the back-burner to make way for my 32 gnome warrior.
Something tells me a gnome duel wielding 2h weapons is going to be overkill (which is why I am doing it). Anyway my point is that I want to have a variation of heals, dps, and tanks to chose from, and even respect them to mix up who does what.

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterXsile

You also spelled priest wrong...

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterkamuki

Thats great news, I love my Pali, I love my hunter, so I should find a DK an ok class to play since it mixes the melee of my pali with the petness of my hunter, as of right now I don't plan on making a Dk a main, I'd rather stick to my hunter or possible Paladin depending on how many of the Pali changes stick, but that doesn't mean that I am not going to screw around with one for a bit atleast since I have atleast tried every other class before choosing the 2 I like the best (warlocks are close to hunters in my prefernce, but having done hunter first warlock just isn't right, I like the pet I like the range, it just doesn't feel right though), and yes I realized I said I like ranged and melee, I like the ease of ranged, but I like the thrill of melee in the sense of "oh s*** no I am down to 10% health common die faster die faster.... yes you died when I was down to 3% health, luckly with no DoTs on me".

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterEgma

I have leveled an alt of all classes to at least 14. I have a 70 BM hunter and 70 combat sword rogue. I find them as alts to my 47 ret pally or my 63 ret pally because i always tend to find the pallys really fun to level with.

October 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJorres

Oh man, i have my Draenei Warrior 70, ready for be my guild tank, and I always do that when my guildmates needed, but, i think it was a good thing to learn how to play with another char, so, i made i Draenei Shaman, and man, what GREAT char, with a mace and a axe, my totens and my spells i really beat'em all, is so fun to kill a enemy with 5 lvls higher (once i kill even a 10 lvls higher player), it's like my friends say 'Shaman is Jesus, walking over the waters, ressurrecting from the deads and healing people' hahaha

Now i'm starting a Draenei Priest (i know i know, i just love Draenei) and it's whole differente world, but in a good way.

Good fun is the essencial :)

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterDiego Camargo

My main is a protection paladin, and after trying out most of the other classes, I've found my alt.

Druid. I can do fantastic dps but with a gear swap, I can turn around and tank, something which I love just as much as dps.

I need to be in melee, I can't really stand ranged dps or healing. I like to hit things or get hit.

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered Commenteradmiraljustin

i made my alt a prot warrior as i always wanted to tank as there are never enough around IMO and what else better than a warrior? i also hear so many complaints about how hard it is to lvl and grind as prot, so i wanted a challenge, it aint all that difficult, they need to stop QQing

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterNekowarrior

i know what you mean about drenei i had a shaman once i love the dps unforginately it was on my cousin acount so i dont have excess to him i look forward to making another one on my acount but theirs just so much to do before WOTLK i curently play a 55 feral spec druid i tryd balance on difrant acasion whould be lying if i said i liked it the dps is good but it burns mana like crazy i just missed being able to take 3 mobs at a time i will get especialy good after WOTLK

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered Commentercocopuffs

I rerolled ally on my roomates server where he has a NE Spriest and it was solely because of Dorkins and Jimmy.

I watched him play the hunter class and put out so much dam DPS that it made hunter class look incredibly fun and i really wanted to try it out. Right now my Draenei Hunter is closing in on lvl 50 and I tamed King Bangalash and as a tribute to the mighty Dorkins I named him Jimmy II because Jimmy the first is so epicly delicious I tamed his little brother...or perhaps his cousin =]

I love playing my hunter as opposed to my Holy Pally its so much fun! So, thank you Dorkins for letting me see wat a hunter can really do and I look forward to watching you pwn some newbs in future episodes! =P

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterRangrdangr

I have hunter as main and shadow priest as alt. i am still working on alt to get him to lvl.. I like playing priest as it has more fun and i enjoy every moment of it.. i hav druid too.. i like to do bgs with him... tho he is lvl 28.. I think the best alt one could ever make is Gnome Rogue.. (if u hav some love to gnomes)

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered Commentermrbeig

Hailing from TRG here. I used to play a hunter, played him for ~6 months straight, never really levelled an alt past 30 cuz I didn't like him. recently I decided to switch servers and also go from Horde to Alliance. at the current time I am levelling a warrior to be a tank. I guess I just can't stand melee dps, in my opinion, dps is better ranged. I tried dpsing on my warrior for a few instances, but even as fury spec, I wasn't doing much damage. Seriously, I do the same dps as prot as I do as fury/arms. I guess I wanted to be a tank after playing a hunter because I feel like I'm useless as dps, and I don't like seeing other people get hit because the tank can't keep aggro. Also, I chose warrior instead of paladin to tank because frankly, I want a challenge. Paladins have their magic button (consecrate) for aggro, warriors actually have to do something. Besides.... I think paladins are better suited (for me) as healers. They aren't squishy healers, which is awesome, and makes a tanks job that much easier. Not that I have anything against pallies, they are awesome tanks, and awesome at everything really... I guess I never really went for AoE stuff, and I absolutely HATE pallies who spam consecrate with no regard to hunter traps or sap >_< (I don't use thunderclap too much, only when there are more than 2 mobs to tank, which isn't often when hunters, mages, and rogues are around.)

Vên, Executus, TRG.

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterVên

i found that a warlock is very fun to play as an alt to my hunter main. mainly because they both have pets. but the play style is very much the same. send pet in let him get aggro then go all out dps and maybe pop a pet heal.

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAthelias

my mains a fury warrior and as excited as i am to play him in the expansion with titan's grip and heroic leap and all the other new abilities, i'm more excited for my "main alt" which is a resto shaman. Kinda odd that when looking to play an alt after leveling up a rogue (which was just too similar to the fury warrior), a shadow priest, protection pally and elemental shaman, once i switched to resto i knew i found a fresh taste and i liked it :) It was the contrast i needed, ranged vs melee, Healing vs dps and still not squishy like a clothy. Plus resto shamans are great for dungeons and raiding which is what i love the most about the game. Blizz has always impressed me on their ability to cater to every player and every players "alternate" desires in the game XD

October 12, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterkiley

1st I made a pala. He seemed fun and everything, then when I got him to lvl 40 it started to make me bored so I made a rogue and leved both of them, witch was pretty good thing, cause my rogue leveled so much faster cause I knew some of the quest's. and in the end (at lvl 70) my pala came a suckadin, rofl, then I tought that "oh no! that aint going to happen to my rogue" and kept almost every blue drop I cud get. after my rogue came to lvl 70 I made wlock, witch was annoying to lvl cause when I started to lvl it I didint know a crap about caster classes, expecially nothing about wlocks, and ofc my lvling specc was a rip-off (specced like to heavy destro in the start) and it allmost made me delete my wlock, then at lvl 30 someone said me that I shud respecc. I did so and got 7 lvls in a day (full rested ftw). after getting my wlock to lvl 70 I made a warrior, who was easy to lvl cause I knew like every freaking alliance Q up to lvl 70 :) and respecced it to fury, thou he turned out to be a bad char in the end too :( still not getting any gear to him and after getting over 100k of total PvP kills I'm bored of it.

October 14, 2008 | Unregistered Commenternawbrogue

My main is a 70 rogue. With my first alt I went paladin. So we are kinda opposite. Been working hard to level him up. With the AOE grinding, it makes leveling and questing a lot faster then on my rogue. He is currently level 54. Tanking is a breeze. The reason I chose protection is because since I was a low level rogue I wanted to pull big mobs. Which didn't really work as a rogue. Changing from ambushing and backstabing to having to fight the things face on without creeping up behind them is a nice change. Now I gotta grind my way to 70 before Lich King. Then the hard choice of "who should I level to 80 first?" Because I enjoy tanking a lot more then melee dps. But my rogue is in full epics which would make it easier to level to 80 right? Well I just don;t know. Anyways good luck to everyone in the coming expansion.

JamieGhomies 70 human rogue - The Scryers

October 14, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJamieGhomie

I leveled a pally, priest, and lock to 70.
Personally the ability to tank, heal or dps is very refreshing.
Sadly I jumped on the RET bandwagon and am enjoying the new playstyle and utility of the new spec, not to mention to maddening DPS.

I'll go back to tanking, i think. Maybe not.!

October 23, 2008 | Unregistered Commentertayharri

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November 2, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterdotroncantons

Not all DPS toons are created equal. I started life as a lock, got it to 35, then made a hunter, played both into the high 40s.
I started a mage after both the others, and it was the first to 70, the other two are storage toons.

For my alt, Im waiting for the DK.

November 6, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterDeD Fred

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