I’ve never been much for the rep grind.  Never.  I have 2 70s, a level 60, and numerous, numerous alts of virtually every range.  I have a grand total of 2 exalted factions, SSO and Violet Eye, both on my druid.  I think I got soured on the whole rep grind due to the Timbermaw Furbolg pre BC.  Back then, you had to grind a LONG time just to get to stupid Winterspring.  (I did notice, however, that they made it much easier.  Now you only have to complete one quest to make your way through the tunnel safely.)  Since then, I’ve always avoided rep grinds.  The 2 exalted factions I have came naturally, through Kara runs and griding out cash for my epic flyer.

That being said, I find myself in a rep grind for the first time.  I’ve been spending a good deal of time on alts of late, and in the interest of letting my 60 shadow priest accrue some rested XP, I picked up my 42 shammy recently, and have since gotten him to 45.  He’s a lot of fun right now — Windfury crits FTW!  (As an aside, if you ever want info on Shammys, Too Many Annas is a good place to start!)

The problem?  I cannot stand the Elekk mount.  I don’t like how they look, I feel like they are “slower” than the other mounts, though I know they are not.  I especially don’t like the fact that I fricking GET STUCK ON CRAP ALL THE TIME.  Especially doorways.  With every other mount in the game, you can run into just about anywhere, not so with the stupid Elekks.

So, I made the decision that I needed to get a different faction’s mount.  Taking a look at the state of my reputation, I found I was already revered with Stormwind.  A horsey sounds good to me!  I punched up WoWhead, and analyzed the factions page to find some level appropriate quests to boost my SW rep.

Off I went to various parts of Azeroth, and struggled to find quests that were worth my time in terms of rep and time.  I bemoaned this on the guild channel, when a guildy asked me something:  had I gone back and done all the starter quests?  No, I had not.  I had assumed that rep rewards had diminishing rewards based on level.  It turns out they do not.

Wahoo!!!

I jumped the nearest bird and headed to Stormwind.  I left Stormwind riding my ugly purple elephant, and took a hard left towards Northshire Abbey.  Yes, Northshire Abbey.

It turned out to be quite fun to annhiliate the old level 1-5 content that was there, completing all the quests, and netting pretty healthy faction awards.  I did feel a LITTLE weird, since there were level 1s and 2s actually doing honest leveling, so I tried to stay out of their way and finish the quests quickly.  I also made sure to kill only exactly what I needed.  I didn’t want to lay waste to the area and screw over the poor level 1s.

It sure was nice to blow through a lot of that stuff.  I remember wiping once or twice to Garrick Padfoot, and a single Chain Lightning in his direction ended him this time.

I also had a bit of nostalgia, as that was the first zone I played in the game.  I still remember watching the cinematic for the first time, then the flyover narrative intro to the human race.  My first character, a human rogue.  Way back in the day. 

I also remember that from the very first quest, I could see that WoW was different, different and far better.  I had played every major MMORPG previous to it, and from quest 1 WoW blew those others out of the water.  Asheron’s Call, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and more — none of them held a candle to WoW.  In a way, I guess WoW was kind of like I was the other night, a 2 ton bull charging through a china shop of level 1 content.  WoW to the MMORPGs that preceeded it was kind of like me compared to the Kobold Vermin running around Northshire Abbey.  Most of them died before they could raise their protest of “You no take candle!”  It was much the same for WoW, they nuked the hell out of the competition in an instant.

That’s why whenever I hear mention of the “WoW killer,” I just don’t believe it.  Blizzard has been on their “game” for a long time, and I expect it to stay that way.  The only WoW killer, in my mind, is World of Warcraft 2.

Recently, I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing alts, and I’m sure I’m not alone.  Things are in a bit of a lull for many people right now, what with no Wrath release in sight, and the sunny summer months, so more “organized” play is more difficult.  When looking at my collection of alts, and trying to decide which to play, I got to thinking about not which classes I liked, but why I liked them.  Could there be a psychology behind my class choices and the choices of others?  First, let’s take a look at some of the choices I have made, and then try to address possible generalities.

My First Character

Ok, so not necessarily my first character, as I started with a rogue, but my first character I stuck with all the way.  A Hunter.  One of the reasons I took the hunter is that I was in closed beta, and it was one of the last classes that was added to the game.  I also had a previous fondness for pet classes, as they were often very self-sufficient.  That is exactly what the hunter turned out to be.

Though I realize this is an MMO, I often spend a good deal of my time soloing.  I always have.  Part of this is due to my playtimes, as it is often difficult for me to group much at the times I normally play.  With the hunter, soloing was a breeze from level 10 on.

There was also a good deal of complexity with the hunter, which also appealed to me.  There is a vast world of pet selection, pet skills, weapon types, shot selection and a bevvy of other intricacies built-in to the Hunter.  Of course you can quite easily doze as a hunter, just send the pet and auto-attack, but a well-played hunter takes focus and multi-tasking ability.  Perfect.

The problem I found with hunters once I hit 60 was that there were so gosh darn MANY of them.  It was both a powerful and quick leveling class, so of course just about everyone had one.  What was happening was that when I DID have time to group up and start tackling the end game, I had a hard time finding a fricking spot.

My Character Evolution

Soon I decided I needed a class with which I could get groups whenever I wanted to.  The druid appealed to me because it was also a very intricate class, perhaps even more so than the hunter.  Druids can do anything reasonably well, and, more importantly, can spec for healing in the end game.  Healers rarely want for groups the way hunters do.  I also quickly found that once I hit 20, they were as good at soloing, if not better, than hunters.  It was truly the perfect class for me.

I also quickly found I quite enjoyed healing.  There is something about the whole group RELYING on you for success that appealed to me.  I loved the level of responsibility I felt I had, and enjoyed that I was often the difference between life or death for the tank and the group.

My Character Conclusions

For me, the hunter was appealing because of its combination of versatility, power, and intricate playstyle.  The druid appealed to me due to its versatility and, later, its power as a healer.  Not eveyone is suited to healing, but I found that I flat out LOVED the resposibility.  As it turned out, I found the perfect pair of characters.  On one hand, I had the solo friendly Hunter, who could take on most content quickly and efficiently, and made for a good time when alone.  On the other I had my very sought after healer, who also challenged my multi-tasking abilities and my resilience.

With that out of the way, let’s take a gander at the holy trinity of greater class “types,” and see if we can’t find some correlations between their respective play styles and the psychology of their owners.

The Tank

The tank is a very complicated class to play in WoW.  It’s not so much the mechanics of the class itself, as they generally only use a few skills over and over again, but the overall play style.  Tanks are usually responsible for marking and leading instance runs, for starters.  When you join a group as a tank, people just plain EXPECT you to mark and lead.  Because of this, tanks have to know the instances better than anyone else.  They need to know all the mob types and their skills, all the pulls and how they should work, all the boss fights.  Where a DPSer can sit back and wail on the skull, the tank has no such luck.

Not only do they have to know the instances front and back, they also have to have intimate knowledge of all the player classes as well, in order to use them to their fullest ability.  They need to know who can adequately CC mobs, who can use other utility skills to the benefit of the group, and how best to squeeze every last drop of performance out of each and every group.  Once that’s all in the clear, then they have to manage all the mobs coming their way, and do their best to keep control of all of them.  In the end, they also often carry the highest repair bills, and are the most dependent on great gear to succeed.

Whew!  So who in the heck would want to be a tank?

Well, on the “good” side, true leaders.  The people that ENJOY sitting at the head of the table, and shouldering the load for others.  The people that aren’t afraid to hand out orders, or give people advice if they are doing something wrong.  This kind of player gets a great deal of satisfaction out of having a successful run.  They know they did a good job when they get their group through a tough instance, and they often enjoy the respect and admiration they receive for their willingness to lead.

On the “bad” side, the tank classes can also attract the arrogant and the control freaks.  Yes, there are difficult people who like to play tanks.  They can’t enjoy the game unless they can tell people what to do, and when to do it.  They like to bark orders, and they especially enjoy yelling at people for doing things the wrong way.  They get off on the way people “need” them to succeed, and they don’t care so much if people admire them so much as respect them.

The Healer

Healers find themselves in their own predicaments.  Healers are often the first ones blamed for a wipe, and at the same time they seldom get credit for a “good” run.  They spend all their time playing “whack-a-mole” with health bars, and consequently don’t really “see” what’s around them as much as other classes.  Healing can also be VERY difficult in ways people don’t expect.  An undergeared tank can be a total nightmare, and the healer may still get blamed if the group wipes repeatedly.  Strong-willed DPSers who seem oblivious to threat monitoring can also make a healer’s job a living hell.  A bad CCer can cost a healer as well, as the healer is usually very high on the threat list, and the first person a free-roaming mob will go after.

They type of person that likes to play the healer role is often someone who cares more about the success of the group as a whole than personal achievements.  Very few people pay much attention to healing stats and numbers like they do DPS, but this type of player doesn’t really care.  They would rather see a successful run where nobody dies than a wipe-filled run where they collect loads of epics.  You’ll notice one theme in many healers is they fail to heal themselves. I think this tendency goes a long way to explaining the type of person that plays a healer.  They get lost in the group dynamics, and enjoy it most when the group works together like a well-oiled machine.  Healers often attract the most selfless of players.

Another type of person that can be drawn to the healer class is the player that is interested in quickadvancement above most else.  If you want to get geared up in a dang hurry, roll a healer.  Guilds are always looking to gear up more healers.  This type of player is in it more for the gear and the numbers, and they often fall off and focus on other classes when their gear progression begins to slow.  They may never take the time to really learn the “art” of healing, and likely will become bored with the playstyle after not too long.

The DPSers

In my opinion, nobody gets scrutinized as thoroughly as DPS classes, especially in end game raid situations.  Sure, healing numbers are looked at as well as tanks, but the first thing anyone wants to know is what kind of DPS is being put out.  This is also an area where some very hard numbers are bandied about, everyone seems to know that a BM hunter should be putting out XXXX DPS in SSC, and if you’re only pulling XXX, then you need talking to.  The same can be said about most pure DPS classes, while the more utility-based classes get free passes.  (Shadow Priests, Enhance or Elemental Shammys, etc.)

The most competitive players are often drawn to DPS.  If you want to prove your worth over another guy, this is the easiest class to get definitive answers with.  If you’re out DPSing the next guy by 100+, it’s pretty obvious to everyone.  DPS classes often draw those people flat out obsessed with number crunching.  Heck, there are numerous spreadsheets and gear evaluators out there, and they almost always focus on pure damage output.  If you want to try to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of a character, DPS might be the road you want to take.  There isn’t quite as much that is “ethereal” about DPS classes, just dish out the hurt.

DPS classes can also draw a couple other personality types:  the ego and the lazy.  The ego driven player wants to top the DPS charts above anything else.  They don’t care if the group is wiping, as long as they are in spot #1.  The lazy player sometimes picks up DPS classes because, well, they can be easy to play.  Hunters are classically associated with this type of player with the mean-spirited moniker “huntard,” since supposedly a 2 year old could get a hunter to level 70.  This “lazy” type of player is the polar opposite of the competitive type.  They probably know nothing of gemming strategies, DPS spreadsheets, or how to maximize their DPS in any way.  They know a couple of tricks, and stick to them.

Conclusion, Sort Of

So what exactly is the point of all of this?  Well, for one I think it’s interesting that if you pay attention you see these aforementioned types of players again and again.  I’ve been playing WoW for over 4 years, and it was like that from almost the start.  The leaders and the Arrogant rolled tanks, the Helpers and Gear Whores rolled healers, the Competitive, Ego Driven and Lazy rolled DPSers.  While it may seem I’m giving a “good” and “bad” type for each of the holy trinity, in the end I don’t think there is all that much difference.  Let’s face it, everyone is in the game to have fun, well, most everyone, and they have the right to do it how they see fit.  I’ve run many an instance with an Arrogant Tank, and I never quit because of it.  I’ve also been guilty of a bit of both Guild Whoring and Laziness in the past as well, but that doesn’t make me a “bad” player.

In a way, I think it goes to show just how great a game WoW is, and why it has had the longevity that it has.  I’ve really only scratched the surface with this post, as I’m sure if someone took the time to really analyze characters and why people play them, they could find many more common themes.  I also generalized into the three main types, and I’m sure that if you shifted focus to particular classes you’d see different things.  Heck, I didn’t even get into the altaholic, who likes to play a little bit of everything.  (But, in my experience, the Altaholic often has a Healer that they play the most - so I’m not so sure they aren’t just an offshoot of dealing with the often boring, thankless job that is healing.)

In the end, maybe you found yourself in one of the types I described.  Perhaps in reading this article, you gained a new understanding of why you play the character you play.  Maybe in some small way it can help you be better at what you do, and at the same time teach you what you really enjoy about the game at a basic level.  Then again, maybe not.  So what type of player are you?

And how sweet it is.  I dinged 60 with my shadow priest over the weekend, and I had forgotten just how much better the itemization gets when you hit the outlands.  Not just in terms of the various green drops I could find on the AH to wear, but also in the quest rewards.

After a few of the starting quests in Honor Hold, I made some huge upgrades by way of quest rewards.  I got the [Shadowbrim Travel Hat], which is both dapper and has some great stats.  Then I picked up a new pair of pants, the [Wanderer's Stitched Trousers] along with a very nice and fancy-looking, animated weapon in [The Staff of the Twin Worlds].  The capper though, was the [Goldweave Tunic], which will probably last me into the mid 60’s.  Wow, just wow.  It’s amazing how quickly you can acquire great upgrades in the Outlands.

To celebrate my newfound power, I decided it was time to give my first Outlands instance a try.  So I went about putting together a group for Hellfire Ramparts.  Awlbiste of Awlbiste’s Thicket offered to come out with her freshly 60 Druid to heal, and bring along her freshly 60 Hunter better half.  We picked up a guild tank, and put out the clarion call for a fifth, which was answered by the guild leader in the form of his 66 holy pally.  So, healer heavy isn’t the first thing you want to hear, but that’s what we were.  Also, the warrior we brought along was very new to the game, the warrior being his first character, and didn’t have much experience tanking.

So we had a group, and it was an interesting one.  Gahrie, the tank, had to use a two hander as his one handed weapon skills were quite low, since he had mostly soloed his way to 63.  He was also unable to fill the role the tank often takes, of marking targets and generally leading.  So, I asked if anyone felt up to taking that task, and noone spoke up.  So I found myself marking and leading the run.

Weird.  I never, and I mean NEVER have to mark targets or lead a run.  My main is a healer, and they hang back and do the same thing no matter what:  keep the party alive.  There was a time, long long ago, when I was feral spec’d.  Even then, though, I think I tanked a grand total of 2 Outlands instances.  So though I HAD marked before, it was only a couple times.  This should be interesting.

As I mentioned before, our tank Gahrie is a very green player, and doesn’t have much tanking experience.  As the leader I had to kind of give him advice and walk him through some basics, though my tanking knowledge is limited.  Gahrie was VERY open to my suggestions, and was eager to learn.  That’s a huge plus in my book, and it made the run easier than it could have been.

Anyhow, it becomes obvious to me fairly early on that Gahrie isn’t great at generating threats on multiple targets.  Of course it doesn’t help that he has to tank with a slow 2 hander, either.  My remedy was to use as much CC as we could, whenever we could.  So I often set up trap targets for the hunter where I often might skip them, and also spent a lot of the instance doing some CC myself — Mind Control.

Ok, though I’ve messed with MC a bit through my leveling process, I rarely used it.  But in Ramparts I had a HELL of a lot of fun MCing targets at any opportunity.  It was great for us because it both took one mob out of play and used said mob to bash on the others.  Of course this killed my DPS numbers on the meters, but frankly I didn’t care.  It was just too damn much fun to MC guys left and right.

Sometimes I threw MC on a caster, and blasted away at his buddies, or I MC’d an archer and launch some arrows.  By far my favorite target, though, was the Bonechewer Destroyer.

They hit quite hard for this mostly level appropriate group, so that was a good mob to choose.  They also had a couple nice abilities for me to use, and, to top it all off, they look badass.  Nothing like using the enemy’s best weapon against them, eh?

Now, the only real problem with using MC is the aggro when it breaks.  I very nearly died quite a few times, as it was very difficult to get a mob off me that I had MC’d.  Still, it was a ton of fun.

So in general the run went alright.  It was a little slow, it was a little messy, but we managed fine with that makeup all the way to the last boss, the Dragon and Rider.  After a couple of wipes, the GL hopped on his 70 hunter just so we could get it done and get out of there.  Without the GL on that run, we would not have fared as well.  He was multi-tasking like crazy as his Pally for most of the instance, and then saved our butts with his hunter in the end.

All in all it was a lot of fun for me, we made it all the way through, and I grabbed the [Witching Band] at the end. Nice, very nice. Our tank learned a lot of the basics of tanking, like pulling with a ranged weapon, and trying to LOS pull casters. The hunter got to practice trapping, a LOT. I got to play around with MC, and the GL, surely, got to laugh a little. It was great to group with a fellow blogger for the first time, and I was glad that we were successful. Then, to end my night on another nice loot note, I also picked up the [Mantle of Magical Might] from the Ramparts main quest.

Needless to say, I’m quite happy to be back in the Outlands, and I’m also VERY happy with the shadow priest at this point. It really is a VERY different playstyle from both my Druid and my Hunter, and a lot of fun. Now to tackle the Blood Furnace! Thanks for reading!

I had never run heroic Magisters’ Terrace before last night.  I had heard how tough it was, and based on how tough MagT is in regular mode, I believed the hype.  Well, last night I got to see the truth.

The group was a Druid tank, a Lock, Mage, Hunter and myself, the Tree.  Perhaps a warrior or pally tank would have been preferable, but I’d say that’s pretty close to an idea makeup for that instance.

We started out just peachy keen, one shotting the first two bosses without any wipes.  Things got a little dicey when we got to Delrissa, but we took her down after a couple of attempts.  She was also gracious enough to drop the [Vial of the Sunwell], one of the only drops I was looking for in there.  I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that trinket, if it had +heal it would be a slam dunk, but I’ll test it out and see how it flies.

That pull between Delrissa and Kael, though, is just plain nasty.  Groups I am in RARELY wipe on five man trash, but that is one case where we did.  Even with the great blend of CC we had going, it’s just a brutal pull.  Still, we took them down in a couple of tries.

Then, the big guy.  Those fireballs he flings around hit HARD!  I made a big mistake in our first few attempts, I was trying to stay out of tree form since I had to worry about the phoenix.  Never again.  It was all I could do to keep the tank up, and if any of the squishies got aggro, forget about it.  2 fireballs and they were down.  We probably wiped on him 5 times before I finally found the error of my ways.  I finally wisened up enough to just stay in tree form and deal with the Phoenix slow feet and all.  That made all the difference, and we took his butt down.  It was a great learning experience for me, as I found that sometimes you just have to stay in Tree no matter what.  The bonus from the aura and the mana efficiency made all the difference in the world.

Oh, and I also ended up picking up the [Phoenix Hatchling].  Woot!

All in all, it was a fun night.  In  the future I don’t anticipate Heroic MagT being a real problem as long as we have a good CC mix.  I also got 2 drops I was looking for, along with 4 badges, and all it cost me was 24g in repairs!  :)  All in all, I’d call it a nice, challenging instance where you can easily get your head kicked in.  I have the bruises to prove it.

As is often the case with a post of this nature, I had a lot of further thoughts and things I’d wished I had included once I hit the “publish” button.  It’s the nature of the beast, I guess.  So here are some further ruminations on Why We WoW.

One of the key points that came up with people when I discussed my post yesterday, both in the comments section and in the BA Chat Room, was the idea that WoW doesn’t mean all that much.  There were people who were vehemently in opposition to this thought, and they felt that there was real meaning for them in the game in one way or another.

There are some ways in which I agree.  I agree that the “good feelings” you get from accomplishments do in fact mean something.  I generally have what I’d call an “expansive” or “spiritual” way of thinking, and IMO having positive thoughts and experiences is VERY important.  I know that I generally “feel good” about things if I have a successful night in WoW, and I know a lot of other people feel the same.

So yes, “silly” accomplishments in the game can affect your life.  Heck, maybe you have a great night in SSC, and the next day at work feel uber IRL, and get yourself a raise. 

Entertainment or Hobby?

I think something that comes up again and again in reaction to my post yesterday is that WoW is much more than your standard movie or television show.  After all, those are passive entertainment activities, and passive WoW would be no fun at all.  I mean, you don’t make any decisions in the movie theater beyond “butter or no butter,” and you aren’t affecting the outcome of CSI by making decisions for the main characters.

In WoW, however,  you are playing an active role.  Isn’t WoW more a hobby than entertainment?

One of things that people who don’t play WoW don’t get is that it’s more than entertainment.  Many people look at WoW the same way they do television.  To them, we are spending hours and hours a week doing nothing more interactive or enriching than watching the Food Network 24/7.  (In defense of the Food Network, there are times that it’s all I watch!)

Would they think differently if they thought of WoW as a hobby?  I think so, but that might prove difficult.  Say I like to make model cars as a hobby.  If I spent 3 hours every other night painting wheels, nobody would look down on me, ask if I was addicted, and insist I was ruining my life.  The same could be said for most hobbies, too.

If I spent 20 hours a week reading, I’d be enriching my vocabulary, not hopelessly addicted.

If I spent 20 hours a week crocheting, I’d have beautiful blankets and wouldn’t have ben “wasting” my life.

If I spent 20 hours a week painting, people would admire me no matter how crappy said paintings were.

If I spent 20 hours a week raiding in WoW, I’m ruining my life, I need help, and I’m a loser.

Sound about right?  That’s the rub.  How do we convince people that WoW is a hobby, and NOT just entertainment?  I honestly don’t know.

For me, I was only successful convincing my wife that it had some merit once I started this blog, and soon had over 100 regular readers.  Needless to say, I make sure to let her know how my readership grows all the time.  This has largely let me off the hook.

In general, though, it’s hard to convince people that this is a hobby and not entertainment.  We don’t have any visceral “product” at the end to show people, really.  They don’t share our triumphs when we take down a new raid boss, or win the roll on a shiny new epic.  They don’t understand that we develop REAL relationships in game.  That we often talk of things other than WoW, that we share experiences with others.  They just don’t get it.

I guess, in the end, the answer is simple.  Get them to start playing WoW, as the more people that play, the more people understand and value this wonderful game.  (And yes, I have tried this tactic with my wife, but she absolutely refuses to even give it a look.  She can be stubborn sometimes, but it’s one of the reasons I love her!)  I know I value WoW.  Hopefully yesterday’s post didn’t make you think otherwise.  Thanks for reading!