My Main & The Alts

Sounds like a great name for a punk rock band if you ask me.  My main is a Hunter and I see no reason to change that.  I like leveling alts because it is mindless work and it gives me a chance to see how other classes work.  Knowing how other classes work helps me be a better Hunter and a better raid leader when those times come where I am asked to lead.  Nothing worse then being a raid leader that does not know what the other classes should be capable of.  However, that was not my reason for leveling alts to start out with.

I started leveling alts for practical purposes.  I leveled a DK because it start out high enough so I could power level some skills to assist me.  Inscription was an obvious choice being my Hunter had Herbalism to begin with so I could get all I needed to level it with a little farming and I would have herbs left over anyway.  I decided on Enchanting to go with it because of a few reasons.  One being that it went well with Inscription as Inscription made vellums and another was because as I got higher on my Hunter and looked to enchants I noticed that some of the ones I would need where 200g each.  There was no way in hell I was going to pay 200g for an enchant so this way I could make it myself cheaper.

I noticed another thing that seemed to cost a fortune, gems.  So when I made my Druid it was a Miner and Jewelcrafter.  No real thought there, it is what I needed.  So I handled all those BoEs, all those extra Herbs, all those expensive items I needed for my Hunter like enchants, gems and glyphs.  So next stop was gear and lock boxes, so a Rogue it was, with skinning and leatherworking.  That would settle those.  I needed a blacksmtih too so my Shaman would be that and I needed a Tailor so my Priest would be that.

I made all my alts support characters for my main character.  I've gotten a couple to 80.  My Druid and DK are both 80 but I never do anything with them.  There are there for their skills and nothing more.  Once in a while I might run something if someone needs a fill in for a 5 man or something but neither of them are gear or will ever really be geared.  Having a bear that can tank for friends once in a while is nice but I never worked on getting it past that.

As time goes on and I am close to having all the skill maxed, only engineering has not been started, I am left wondering what to do.  The only class I have not started is a Warlock.  I have one at level one sitting in an inn so it is at 100% rest but I have not done a thing with it.  I look to the future and see me having one of each class at level 80 and more importantly, one of each profession at max.  Alchemy would have two of course, one for transmute and one for elixir.  Might even make another Tailor for different specialties there as well.

At some point however I am going to need to do something else.  Once I have all classes level 80 and once I have all skills maxed I will have 10 characters on the server and nothing left to do with them.  I only want one main.  I do not want to deal with gearing up more then one character but I do want to have something else to do when I need to do something different.

So what class should I go for?  I know a secondary main would never be like my main.  I will not go for all those achievements likes I have on my main.  I will not try and gear it up like I have geared up my main.  I would just want it to be good enough to join a PuG should I be bored and looking for something to do.

From where I stand this is how I see my characters.

Priest:  I can see this being a second main.  I love to PvP on my Priest which is a plus.  I like healing but sometimes hate the pressure when I am running with idiots and it is nearly impossible to keep them alive.  I also like that as a healer I can still pew pew when the time comes.  The other day in an UK with an 80 tank that all I needed to do was toss a heal once in a while I decided to do some DPSing and was able to get up to 1100 DPS on my healer at level 71.  So all around the Priest is fun and has some secondary main potential.

Dark Knight: Okay, lets get real here for a minute.  The only people that have DK mains are the ones that failed at every other class in the game and wanted to take the easy route of leveling another one up so they started up one that was already 55.  No one made a DK because they liked being a DK, they made a DK because it was easier for them.  Besides that stigma I just do not like melee classes and if I am going to tank this is not my tank of choice.

Rogue: Read earlier.  I do not like Melee classes and that is all a Rogue does.  I am leveling it to pick locks and make leather/mail, thats it, nothing else.

Paladin: I have not played it enough to make a decision on it yet.  Ret is out of the questing as it is melee and while both prot and holy seem nice I am not so sure about either.  I do think that Holy would be the way to go for a main healer because it is easy mode.  Pally healers are normally tank healers in raids so this makes being a raid healer the easiest.  Not to mention, from what I read, Pally healers have less buttons to deal with then any other healers.

Druid: Been a cat, didn't like it.  Been a chicken, didn't like it.  Am a bear and a tree now.  Never played the tree part but really like playing the bear part.  Sad thing is that bear tanking requires smart DPS more then any other tank.  With that said, being there are so few smart DPS, tanking as a bear sucks.  I will only do it with people I know.  I will not do randoms or PuG with it because people are stupid and I really hate stupid people.

Warrior: Still a little young on the warrior road but so far they seem to be the most fun tanking class out of the experiences I have had.  While I hate melee I can see how whirlwind can be really fun and I might test that out some day.  Just because I hate melee does not mean I will not try it.  I dislike it over all but am not adverse to it so much that I will not try it with different classes.

Shaman: Case and point here.  I hate melee but I like Enhancement.  Who knew?  The rotation is difficult enough where you have to pay attention but easy enough that you can roll with it on the fly.  Might change at 80 but where I am now I have all the skills I will need for end game and it gives me more then ample time to learn how to master my rotation for them.

Mage: When you want easy mode this is it.  It has what I like, range, but I just can not see myself sitting there hitting one button most of the time and occasionally hitting another one.  Leveling is fun because there is no thought to it.  1, 1, 1, 1, 2, (strafe), 1, 1, 1, 1... wow, so freaking hard isn't it?  Dungeon AoEs?  Shift 1, shift 1, shift 1, shift 1.  Can you guess what shift 1 is?  Maybe when I want to play but I also what to veg out at the same time this might be a viable class to play.

Warlock: This is last because this is the one class that I knew almost nothing about at the moment.  I never played it and only know what I have heard from others and what I have read is some of the treads I read.  Yes, before leveling a character I read up on them so I can level faster and better.  The reason this one is last is because I do not really think I will like it.  I've been known to be wrong, so it would not surprise me if I loved playing one once I do get around to it.

So with that all said I see no clear up secondary alt there for me.  Priest seems to be the leading option followed by my Druid Bear and Enhancement Shaman.  None of them however would I be willing to do the heroic grind to get gear once again.  I just do not have it in me to go 300 dungeons any more just to gear up with gear that gets replaced the first time I get into ICC.

I still have a long time before I have all 80s and all skills at max.  For now that is my goal before Cataclysm comes out.  So no need to make a decision now.