Unintended Main
I hit 90 last week on the paladin.
The funny thing is that the reputation concession to alts (i.e. 100% rep gains if you buy a token at Revered) has resulted in some strange behavior on my part. I still don’t like the paladin very much; I chose it as my first 90 because of other considerations, like how it was my only toon with max Archeology (mainly the BoA weapons). Combat as Retribution still feels clunky, especially if I miss with Crusader Strike. Exorcism, Judgment, Crusader Strike, then either Inquisition or Templar’s Verdict, then… wait for procs. Having a 6-second window to Flash of Light after a mob death is infinitely worse than a warrior’s intuitive and satisfying Impending Victory.
Regardless, since I am 90 though, I find myself doing all the dailies that I can. Not just because they are dailies, e.g. the sense that I fall further behind in my future, hypothetical endeavors, but also because I am already near Honored (or well into Honored) with these factions. It feels a waste to start leveling someone else up before getting the 100% rep boost. And thus I continue playing a class I no longer love, earning rewards I can’t use (Coins, Valor, Spirits of Harmony), for the possible betterment of a new main I haven’t even chosen yet.
Obviously I’m getting some form of entertainment, but it is not at the desired level.
On Sunday, I ran ~4 heroics with guildmates and walked out with 8-10 pieces of gear; I zoned in there with maybe two pieces of 450 quest blues and the rest crafted PvP gear. Ended up getting two Strength 2Hs, boots, chest, plus a smattering of tanking drops. As far as I could tell, my DPS on the runs was just shy of 40k, which I am assuming is decent.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. In which case, let me tell the universe: make Retribution more fun.
Posted on January 9, 2013, in WoW and tagged Alt, Archeology, Clunky, Fun, Level Cap, Main, Paladin, Retribution, Rotation, Spirits of Harmony. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments.
In An Age 
How funny, I have also chosen paladin to level first because he had the Archaeology 525 and also he has Blacksmithing and I can make blue pvp sets for my alts Death Knight (which is my main) and warrior (Who I think is more fun that paladin).
Although I didn’t wait for weeks to become reverded to get the rep boost, I didn’t even made dailies at all…Luckily, the quests in Dread waste to get 89-90 get you to Honored with the Klaxxi and they have the Blacksmithing recipes for sale :)
I don’t think I will be bothered to do dailies. Maybe I ll go honored with Golden Lotus on my Tailor Priest and Leatherworker Rogue just to get the recipes. For now I am leveling my toon to level 90 and I will wait for 5.2 patch, where Blizzard said the loot chance in the first 2 LFR raids will be increased so the players can catch up easier on ilvls.
As you understand I hate dailies, not because they are difficult or need effort.I am an old school MMO player and I found dailies the worst thing ever created to gate content. Its a personal choice and “promise” to not bother with dailies in any game. I will never support the cheapest and least creative method of Developers to stretch out content time between patches. I am rat, but I run on my own wheel whenever I want and how long I want..
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Yeah, I used to enjoy dailies and the sort of tangible progression they provided; it wasn’t until Tol Barad that my experience with them soured. “Alright, all dailies complete. At this rate, I’ll hit Exalted in… 17 days.”
After the 1.5 year break though, I am finding myself more tolerant of them. Some are stupidly slow for no reason (Golden Lotus), but I find myself enjoying, say, the Tillers. Could be the zone. Also, there seems less of a reason to hit Exalted anymore. Getting rep to unlock an item which you buy with another gated resource (i.e. Valor), seems especially pointless to me. Unlocking raid-worthy rep rewards bought with gold was one thing, but this is another entirely. Even I have my limits.
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Um, leveling Archeology is much faster, than it used to be at its launch. I do not remember how long exactly it took me, but it was not a problem to level it on my new “main”.
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While that may be true, each minute I spend leveling Arch up on another toon is a minute I could be farming the BoA gear right now. I got the vast majority of Arch rewards before I quit in Cata, with the notable exception of the Bug mount.
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You got it totally backwards here. Your problem is three-folded: 1) You somehow want to have archeology 600 on your new main. The profession is a gimmick. It isn’t required for anything. 2) Not only do you insist on getting it, you insist it is somehow more important than grinding leveling a new main, VP, and rep. That’s because of your _decision_ to care so much for archeology while the rest of the world doesn’t. 3) You somehow are trying to argue not having archeology holds you back in picking a new main. Plain bollocks. Archeology is largely irrelevant. It is a gimmick profession. Did I do grind archeology on my new main? Yes, I did, after I was done with the the daily/weekly content (did dailes, got caps, cleared the raid, etc). Did I play a lot of WoW though? Hell yes. Yet, I only got archeology to 525 1 year after my new main became my new main (my old main had 525 pre-nerf). That’s how important it was…
MoP is not alt-friendly. We agree on this, heck the community even agrees on this. But also, people generally agree MoP is very friendly for people who’d like to switch mains. The people who played WoW during patch 5.0 (when most people decided to come back) tested the waters to see how it is to switch mains (also more so because of a new class the monk). A new expansion is by definition a great time to switch mains due to the hard, world-wide reset. The new account-wide state of things like achievement adds even more to the option of swapping main.
Now you came back what is it, a month ago? No problem, welcome back! You’re lagging behind in the race even in a casual point of view (face it people came back on 25 sept). I suggest you play the catch up on the VP and rep ground. Sure, you are entirely free to play the archeology one, but don’t go complain about it in decisions like swapping main. That just makes your decision look stupid. The community has conceded it is a grindy, gimmicky, optional profession. It isn’t one required for raiding. You can look on the armories of top raiders and you will find raiders who do not have arch 600 on their main. Those are people who min-max everything they can.
Leaves me to say you are a very, very casual player. Dude please, play the class you enjoy most. It is how you will get most out of the game. Sure, if you are very casual leveling up from 1 something (while many others have say most classes on at least 80 or 85) sucks. But you had more characters on 85!! Finding the class you enjoy most and will enjoy as main is a big discussion though. I feel the game could need some work here.
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Perhaps you misunderstood me. I said Archeology is A reason, not THE reason. I actually enjoy the profession, but not enough to do it all over again. It is gimmicky, but there are probably 10+ Arch items in my bags at any given time. And like I was saying, there are additional BoA heirloom-ish weapons this time around. Will my new main be the instant-80 druid I made using the Scroll of Resurrection? Will it be a monk? Will it be my Death Knight, for whom even the BoA spear (weapon DPS > lack of Strength) would make leveling more of a breeze?
There is a little bit of a Sunk Loss fallacy on my part, but keep in mind that I also sort of want the paladin to work. I’m attached; Azuriel is in many ways my WoW identity, the name at the top of every post. A new expansion would be a great time to switch, of course, and I might do so eventually. But not today. If the Commendations didn’t exist, I’d be leveling a different toon instead, since Azuriel gets no real benefit from many factions (as a JC/Alch). Archeology was another reason. Sentimentality another. Getting someone’s Farm up to 100% ASAP another.
I appreciate the concern, but believe me, I am operating at the maximum amount of possible fun here. The warrior felt better to level, but I know how I operate. The minute I hit 90 on the warrior (or whomever) and start grinding Klaxxi rep, whatever fun I’ll have then will be reduced by the knowledge that I could have gotten +100% rep by just spending a few more days on Azuriel. That might be classical Sunk Cost fallacy, or that might actually be the most efficient course, I dunno. For now, since I don’t even know who the main shall be, I stay the course with the default choice.
Plus, I might run out the 5.2 clock and save myself some time in LFR.
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I haven’t figured out why dailies irritate so many people. If you’re a min-maxer, you only need revered with Klaxxi, GL, Shado-Pan, August Celestials, and Dominance/Shieldwall. And you don’t need all of these at the same time, because valor cap means you can’t utilize them right away. If you aren’t a min-maxer, like most sane people, then it’s much easier. Do 2 or 3 at a time, which gives you about 10-15 quests a day (aside from GL, which Blizzard has said mea culpa to). August Celestials is probably the longest grind because it is entirely dailies. Gating SP and AC behind GL was a terrible, terrible idea though.
Working for the commendations is reasonable on your part, though I think you can get to maybe 88 or so without encountering an endgame faction. It really makes the grind much easier. Klaxxi can be gotten to revered solely from leveling + maybe 2 dailies, Shado pan is partway into honored, and I haven’t done the GL or D/S lead-ins to see where they get me. August Celestials is…like 1000 into neutral. I guess we can’t have everything.
Incidentally, Kerlon is right about Archaeology. I wouldn’t let that hold you back from switching mains. For my part, the 55 exalted reputations are why my paladin will always be my main. But I don’t dislike the paladin as much as you, rather I find MoP ret much improved from the spazz that was Cata ret. All they have to do now is delete Inquisition and fix up exorcism some and it will be perfect. But then I never disliked the FCFS ret in Wrath. Rotations should be simple. I do think supplication should make the FoL instant-cast though.
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Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ret in Wrath and was… alright with Ret in Cata originally. The enforced 3-seconds of proc-baiting deadspace is what is killing me though. That, and the knowledge that Ret PvP has been focused so much on off-healing utility that isn’t nearly as fun in solo BGs.
As for the dailies, I don’t hate them or anything. They are what they are. I’m just increasingly weary about how many Spirits of Harmony (etc) I’m racking up when they could be put to much better use on, say, my warrior Blacksmith. Nevermind how there is never any of the Klaxxi gear on the AH on my mostly-dead realm. The money-making/twinking opportunities… sigh.
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I haven’t figured out why dailies irritate so many people.
It’s not the dailies themselves which are irritating people. Dailies are just mindless stupid repetition, so you just ignore them and be done with it.
What irritates people like me is that they decided to gate behind dailies some stuff which is COMPLETELY unrelated to dailies. Valor gear: why would I need to run dailies to buy it? It’s gear designed for instances, not for running dailies, so it should come from doing instances and not running dailies. Crafting patters: why are crafting patterns requiring me to run dailies? Dailies have nothing to do with crafting: crafting items should come from crafting, and not running dailies.
I understand that the “rep grind” is something of a keystone of WoW play, simply because they could not find any better idea, but they could at least make it so that the grind remains in the same niche it’s supposed to provide items for, or allow multiple ways to gain rep which does not force me into a single, mind-numbing, gameplay.
Shit Lotus is the worse of all, daily quests which gate one another, which means that if you hit one you hate, you’ll still be forced to do it if you want access to the rest. Tillers works exactly in the opposite way….. guess why it’s everyone’s favorite rep…..
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