I have changed my main once – and only once – in my WoW career. It was sort of a huge leap too. Not only did I go from tank to healer, but I went from Blue to Red.
It’s not a move I’ve ever regretted. Especially since the former main in question is now level 85, sporting horns and hooves, and rocking the raid finder as a healer alt. Sure, I had to faction, race, and gender change the character to make myself play him(her) again, but it’s been worth it.
I sorta miss the floppy arms and the bouncy ears/pony tail, but since Tauren ladies have a cute swishy tail, it all balances out.
The female Tauren also have a better casting animation. I just want to point that out, since they took away our ability to be trees 24/7. I’m still a little bitter about that.
I mean, I’m getting it back in Mists, but they still took it away for an entire expansion! /grump
I haven’t touched bear tanking since dabbling a bit during Wrath, so I have no idea if it’s as good as it seems to be. I have no desire whatsoever to find out, either. Avery’s mainspec according to the armory is now boomkin and the offspec is resto and I like it that way.
I’ll tell you what I have been doing though.
With a paladin.
The Prot Paladin Tanking Rotation: Present Keyboard, Apply Face
Kalil’s been tanking on and off over the course of the past couple weeks. I’ve been braving the early morning NORMAL dungeon queue in my (fairly decent all things considered) tank gear to get some practice. So far, the groups haven’t been the nightmare I feared, but there are some…
Oh. There are some.
But my tanking spine is starting to grow again. I let people who pull for me tank their own mobs, and I cackle if the healer is awesome enough to let them die. I drop groups that are full of asshats and my ignore list is active. I don’t troll LFG and I don’t put up with trolls. I pull at a decent pace – which is a FAR cry from how I used to take five minutes between pulls as a bear because the thought of losing aggro terrified me. I know what to tank and where to pull the bosses. Heck, I’ve even tanked a couple guild DS and Firelands runs.
I will not tank LFR, but that’s because it’s LFR.
And this? This is all new to me, really.
Checking Kalil’s history, it’s been almost four years (okay, three and a half) since I swapped sides and joined my current guild.
The wings are also sexier.
(Yes, it really has been that long.)
That means that for the majority of my WoW career now, I’ve been a healer. I started playing sometime mid-BC and at the tail end of BC, I ran screaming from my druid and tanking and the Alliance into the warm embrace of early Wrath Era Holy Light Spam. I weathered Wrath and at the end came up with mostly good, fuzzy feelings. I adore my guild, and the people in it, and I’m proud of what we’ve managed to accomplish.
Cata hit and with it came a whole new holy paladin dynamic. I weathered that too, even when numbers make my head hurt and I’m a theorycrafter in the same way a lady bug is a surgeon. When I heal I hit the button to make the bar go back to being full and I try to do it without wasting mana and overhealing all over the place, but I can’t do math that fast so I just hit a button and hope it’s the right one.
And now you know the secret: I’m not a very good healer, I can just flail about really convincingly. It’s become second nature to me.
Anyway, the point is that I’ve been healing for a very, very long time. I’ve got three toons at max level that heal and all three are pretty well geared at this point. The shaman isn’t far behind. I’m a Professional Healer. And it’s gotten to the point where I’m looking around and going, “Well… maybe I dun wanna be anymore.”
Since the announcement of Mists and the introduction of monks I’ve been toying with the idea that maybe – just maybe – Kalil might retire. The only problem with that was that Kalil has 3+ years of work, mounts, pets, achievements and titles put into him. That is a lot of work to just toss away.
Then Blizzard went and told us that achievements, pets, mounts and (I think) titles would be account wide and now my decision just got a whole lot easier. I think.
See… The thing is… Just between you and me?
…
I kinda like tanking now.
No, seriously. The very thing I despised in BC. The thing that made me hate and loathe the first toon I ever rolled? Yeah. Yeah, I’m doing that and enjoying it.
I don’t even know either.
And that’s not the worst (best?) part. Going into Mists I have too many choices now. I like playing my characters. I can’t think of one right now that isn’t fun. And playing the monk on the beta is also amazingly fun. I have a whole stable full of max level characters and by the time Mists rolls out, I should have between eight and nine level 85 toons on my main server – eight of which could be the new main. I say eight because the ninth is my Alliance toon – either the paladin on WrA or the priest on SC – and that would require leaving the guild that has been so good to me for the past three and a half years and just… no. Not happening.
So now what? Do I continue healing with Kalil because – let’s face it – holy paladins are getting some pretty fun toys in Mists? Do I start tanking on him? We could use another tank, after all. DPS? I’ve got a lot of DPS toons that I don’t entirely suck at playing. Warriors are kinda fun. Beta ret? KALIL SMASH! I’m digging the monk on beta. And then, once Mists comes out, there will be five – 5! – healing classes to chose from if it turns out we have a drought of healers. Mistweavers are turning out to be bad ass. I haven’t tried monk tanking yet, and if/when I do that might change things even more.
MAKE STOP WITH THE STUFF AND THE CHOICES.
This is actually a good thing. And I’m looking forward to making that decision. It’s too early to make it now, but I’ll have to do it eventually. Nothing’s been narrowed down, but I think once the release date gets announced that’ll help.
The only thing I do know for sure is that Kalil will be the first toon to 90 because he is the one I know best. Whether he remains the main is yet to be seen, but he’ll cling to that position for a little while longer. Either as a healer, or…
Maybe a tank.
Changing up what you do keeps things interesting, after all. And I kind of love it.