Leveling alts

I’ve not been here very long, and I want to make sure that the habit of posting about Kara doesn’t become a style. So this post is going to mix it up some, and talk about alts.

First off, I hate (seriously, its hate) leveling casters. It has nothing to do with how they play, but more that they are so reliant on mana. I don’t like stopping every few fights to mana up. I can’t play a caster for very long before I get dreadfully tired, and wish I was doing something else. This is funny, because I really want to play a mage and priest end game, because the concept, even with all the drinking, just seems fun. Even with the taste of leveling them. Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t see them with having anywhere near the mana problems of leveling casters (nor should they have the problems with decent gear!)

Leveling them has never seemed fun. The idea of drinking every few pulls has never seemed fun. But I’ve struggled with a priest up to 43, and another one up to 32, and a mage up to 38. And every time I’ve had fun in one area of the game.

Instances are great on caster alts. At least, if you have the mana dependency problems that I do, they are. I never find that I have to mana up so much, someone else is taking the hurt for me, and I’m working with people. I play this game for the people more than anything else, so maybe the next time I take up the mantle of clothie I should just try a good instance grind to 70.

Melee characters are a whole different game. Gear dependency as a melee class is insane, but your ability to grind is equally so. It makes doing world quests easy, fun, entertaining, and is likely a major reason in why so many people are warriors and rogues.

The proof behind the gear dependency can be displayed through my two highest level alts, my rogue Suterusu and my warrior Gisli. Gisli got every new weapon that was an improvement for him as fast as possible. I bought an AH sword for 90g (instead of getting my epic mount, I bought a sword :) and got a frost wolf instead) that he uses right now, and is a great sword for leveling. Suterusu has never strained to get weapons. I had both the SM and RFD quests for swords in my bag, and I never got them, simply because I don’t like those instances. Gisli is going to be my next 70. Suterusu I have to strain myself to play, because his DPS is so abysmal that he has problems killing mobs his level.

Casters on the other hand don’t gain anywhere near as much from gear. A bit of intellect (for less mana problems) and stamina (for less death problems) is about all that you really care about while leveling. Spell damage, hit, and crit are just nice bonuses.

So now pick your poison, gear dependency or mana problems. I’m a gear dependency sort of person, but that might only be because they don’t have mana bandages ;)

One side note; hunters fall in neither of these categories. They can successfully get to 70 with level 20ish gear, which means no mana and little DPS of their own. I’m not saying that at 70 they take no skill (in fact, I place them as one of the hardest classes to do really well in anything besides solo play), but if you want an easy class to get to 70, hunters are it.