Living with Altoholism

who's that pokemon?

There are a lot of ways to enjoy the experience of having alternative characters. Some people have just one or two alts that they dedicate a lot of love into, or they have tons of alts that they all tend to have a decent gear level. Some people can never manage to get an alt to max level, while others have more max level characters than I could even feasibly imagine leveling up.

Then there's me. I love leveling alts, but here's the thing - if I don't delete the alt before it hits max level, I'll gear it up for a week, farm it a transmog outfit, and move onto something else. It may be a little odd to level up alts just to delete them later, but I really enjoy the leveling experience with some classes, especially tanking low level dungeons.

As for the ones who were lucky enough to make it to max level before they got deleted, I log onto them periodically, but I can't figure out which one alt I really want to focus on. I thought it was my warlock, but not being able to heal or tank is frustrating.

I've had max level alts throughout every expansion, but usually not this many. Once I felt comfortable to start leveling alts during Mists, I leveled up my shaman, then my priest, then I leveled a warlock, which I had been trying to do for a long time. I really enjoyed the priest and warlock and those were my primary alts.

Then I leveled my hunter, then I leveled my paladin, then I leveled my warrior... and none of them really had an opportunity to flourish. Somewhere along the line I leveled up another druid - an alliance druid, primarily for [Double Agent], though also because I had never truly experienced the alliance side of leveling.

It's pretty weird playing a game for so long and then entering a city where you can't find the auction house, but moving on. I used my Warlords boost on a rogue, learned how to play him, ran LFR three times and now I just mail it all my lockboxes. I leveled a monk to 85 and couldn't bear to do Pandaria again, and now I have an 85 death knight with the same issue.

look at these smug bastards

The only class I'm missing is a mage, but let me tell you - I have leveled so many mages and deleted them that I just don't think I have it in me. I had a max level mage once - when the max level was 60. It was my second max level character. My druid, which I then main swapped to, was actually my third max level character. I ended up deleting that mage, having him restored, and then actually deleting him again. I recently deleted a level 75 mage and I have deleted so many others. I don't know what it is with mages. Now I don't have anything below level 85 so I don't see myself deleting any of these other classes any time soon, and I don't think I'll level a character on another server.

I really do like playing alts - a new playstyle, needing to think about gearing differently, different colored buttons - but my primary objective in leveling up alts has always been to have profession mules. I have all of the professions maxed out, and the only reason it took me so long to get Master of All is because of blacksmithing, which I finally leveled up right before they added the easy ghost iron patterns.

I've always made sure to have enough alts at least high enough level to be able to level up their professions. I had a lot of lower level characters with maxed profession skills during the last few expansions. This is the first expansion where I've actually had all the professions maxed at once, all on max level characters. I actually have two enchanters, though my rogue is missing professions entirely. I think one of the biggest reasons I haven't leveled my monk or death knight is because I don't have any professional needs from them. But at least my rogue can open lock boxes.

Honestly, I think I went over the top for my own personal alt needs. One of the biggest questions I have on my mind for the release of Warlords is actually which alts I want to focus on - after the initial druid main binge - so I don't make the same mistake. I have always enjoyed playing alts, but I always had two or three that I gave all my love and attention. I'm almost overwhelmed by all of these alts.