A Show of Hands

Can I get a show of hands here, as to who still plays the first toon they leveled to 80?

Pick me, pick me!!

Now let’s see who still considers that toon their main?

One more question: how many of you have considered that toon your main continually, without switching mains at any point?

I’m gonna bet not too many people still have their hands up. I also don’t think I’m one of them anymore.

After much thought, I’ve decided to semi-retire Rhii as my main and switch my focus to Myrhani (please don’t kick me off your blog, Aurdon!). Everyone who reads probably knows I’ve been spending much more time with her anyway, but I only made the mental switch to “I am a holy paladin” from “I’m an arcane mage” sometime in the last week.

The reasoning process was pretty complex (and actually kind of agonizing), which is why this post has been a long time coming. Chastity from Righteous Orbs actually gave me the catalyst for finally figuring out what was wrong between Rhii and I. I knew I was severely burned out. I knew I was bored with her, didn’t want to log in, didn’t want to even look at her on the log in screen, but I didn’t actually understand why I felt that way until I had a magic epiphany while reading this post.

It hinges on the “boost culture” that exists on most servers. The server where I leveled Rhii (Aerie Peak – US) was a mature, high population server which hadn’t been “recommended” for new players for a very long time. So there was a disproportionate number of high level characters as compared to low levels. Also, there weren’t the hordes of Azerothian-tourists that are out there now trying to take in the sights one last time before Cataclysm hits. So the low level content for groups was just dead. As a consequence of this, I got boosted through too much low level content.  Waiting for an appropriately leveled instance group could take days, so I just picked up the assistance offered from my helpful guildies, and got boosted. I even got runs through some of the lower level Outland instances… Sometimes I was getting so many runs and so much improbable blue gear that people assumed I was a twink!

The problem was, when I reached 80 I didn’t have any experience. I didn’t know how to play my class in groups, or even if pure ranged DPS was the role I wanted to play! I worked for months getting Rhii to the level cap, and while I appreciate the gameplay of the mage class, and honestly will probably faction/server transfer her when I scrape up the cash so that I can continue to play her the way I like her (crafting, soloing, etc), I think the reason for my burnout is that the mage’s role in the endgame is a role I don’t enjoy very much!

If I’d done some instances before I got to Northrend, I might have realized that before and been able to try out a tanking or healing role before then. Leveling Myrhani has been a complete revelation on that point. Kel’Thuzad has a different server population than Aerie Peak did, and post-Blizzcon09 there’s been a huge amount of opportunity to run old world instances, and I’ve had the chance to try ret-DPS, a little tanking, and healing. And I like healing! And I’m good at it!

Myrhani’s as decked out in dungeon blues as Rhii ever was, and she earned every single one of them on her own merits. No boosting–unless you count one or two fun-runs with Aurdon and Adreanna pre-level 30… but it has not been a significant portion of her leveling experience.

Add to that the fact that I originally started playing as Horde and have honestly missed it, we landed in a guild with a good-sized group of mid-60s all leveling together toward endgame raiding, the stars are aligned, so really  it’s a no brainer of a choice. I’m feeling a little bad for Naelian, now that he’s followed me to a second server. But he’s discovered pally tanking and I think we’ve come home in a sense. He’s going to transfer his druid at some nebulous point in the future when he can make him a troll, and I’ll probably hold off moving Rhii for a while too, to be fair.

So here’s Myrhani, looking all holy:

And I’ll leave you with a final question:

When I move Rhii to Kel’Thuzad, should she become “Rhii-named” the Belf mage, or “Rhii-named” the troll mage?!

Tagged as: faction transfer, Myrhani, Rhii, server transfer