Yeah, I feel that, in a way I feel like there is a lot of homogenization, but I don’t know, it does feel like something is missing. I “main” my mage because I have basically most stuff completed on him since I started playing, so basically all loremasters and patch content since Legion, so because of the attachment value, I am always playing him, but I would be lying if I said I don’t get bored of actually logging in and playing this character within a month.
Partially I think it also has to do with balancing and class design, more specifically, for now I can’t stand Arcane’s Design, I hated it when it started in Shadowlands and still don’t enjoy it… Except Arcane was my favorite spec, I started playing it because of Aluneth and it kinda became part of my character’s identity, but then randomly during Shadowlands Blizzard decided to pick the barely functional gimmicky Kyrian Spark build that made Arcane slightly competitive with Fire and just kept making it more and more complicated from there, to the point that the spec is simply not enjoyable for me, so it feels like I have my favorite spec locked out.
And to add to that, I am too self conscious of the meta nowadays compared to Legion and BFA, if I do a raid and I notice that Frost is dealing much more damage than Fire, it doesn’t matter if I prefer Fire’s gameplay, I feel “forced” to play Frost.
Why, though? Just stick with whatever spec you like the best and get good enough at it that noone cares. I just always play frost and noone has ever given me flak about it, even when it was a weaker spec.
As I said, I am too self aware of the meta. It’s kinda like playing Tank in Overwatch without counterswapping. Sure I would love to play Reinhardt all day long, but I feel bad about it to the point where the “feeling bad” is more relevant than the fun I am having with the character, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it makes sense. Logically you probably understand that meta doesn’t matter nearly as much as a lot of people would have you believe but sometimes it’s hard to logic. Fair enough.
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Yes and no. Once you have a good handle on all the classes/specs almost all of them can be set up very similarly in the way of core skill usage. For instance, 7 is my instant opener (Charge/Purge the Wicked/ect), 5 is my spam button (Smite/WW/Obliterate/Raptor Strike/ect), r is my interrupt, 4 is my super short cd’s/Proc button (Bloodthirst/Kill Command/Penance/Howling Blast/ect), t is my movement ability, u is my major CD, 8 is my ~1 min CDs, 6 is my Dots and/or secondary super short CD, 3 is AoE and/or defensive button. Then there’s 2 modifiers for each button and they all kind of go in line with their non-modified button type of skill. This list obviously doesn’t even cover 1 character’s worth of core skills. Most of my characters have a list of core skills that covers 1-8 and r/t/y/u and modifiers for each one. But it gives you an idea. IF you couldn’t tell I have big hands. SO reaching 8 is pretty easy for me without moving my hand from ‘home’ (wasd).
Now of course there’s some variance between classes, specs, and roles. Not all specs will have a good proc button. Some specs will have a button that fills two roles. Some specs will have multiple 1 min CD’s. Some specs will have a diff button all together (see taunt for tanks which is 1 for me). Some specs will be chock-full of longer CD’s. But on the whole I can get on any class/spec and have a base to work from.
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Basically so, as much as I would like to pretend I only make logic sound decisions that benefit myself without hurting others… I am still human at the end of the day, emotions based on past experiences tend to take precedence.
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My main main has been my monk here since MoP. I have had different horde mains depending on the expansion. For DF there was no need to have a second main, for a different side of the story or anything, so I just kind of had my main, then a handful of alts I also wanted to level to 70, some alliance and some horde, and that was it. I still have a few I’ll get to 70 in the next few months, plus any I’ll lever in Remix.
I just level and quest, no dungeons or raids, so no real reason to have a second or third “main”, but I do have ones I always level in order after my main. Monk here will likely always be my first character to do all the things and get achievs etc, just the way it’s always been since MoP.
Try unusual/unintended combos, like playing Holy Priest DPS. No procs, just straight out rotation. No good damage either though, so it’s only for meme content (WQs, Heroic, LFR etc)…
Also try MM Hunter in PvP and come back here to say it’s not impactful…
I am an altaholic. I got 8 toons to 2-2.5k m+ rating last season.
but in terms of “mains”, i generally like to have one for each role: tank, healer, dps.
and I usually like to change my primary/main toon each expac just to have a different flavor.
for me DF has been:
tank: VDH (but i have hit 2k m+ on paladin, warrior and druid)
healer: disc priest (but also hit 2k on resto shaman)
dps: BM hunter to 2.5k last season (arcane mage and afflock also to 2k)
this season, I am going to focus on the VDH and BM Hunter. maybe for no other reason than I spent 100k gold on that freaking emerald dream rune for each of them. I had bought one for the mage, too, so maybe he will get played in between the others. not sure which healer I will run this season. might go holy on the priest, but my long term healer preference is shaman. I will have to see how his throughput is.
if I REALLY had to pick just one, i would stick with the BM hunter. best for world quests, gathering, and I am at least mediocre with it in pug BGs.
I just read the first sentence of every paragraph and it saved me 2 min of reading lol
I hope you’re not serious.
I guess if you only use 2-3 abilities from each class and ignore the entire toolkit maybe they could seem a bit similar…in the right light.
I have 4 druids - one for each spec.
Makes mog hunting a breeze 
Choosing to stick with one character saved a lot of time for me this expansion. WoW is one game I play among many.
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My first ever wow charcater was a worgen warrior in the tail end of WoD. I absolutely LOVED the gilneas staring zone but didn’t enjoy the worgen model.
Deleted, made a human warrior. Okayish model, didn’t care for stormwindian culture and decided I didn’t like playing warrior.
Upon reaching Westfall, i found the SI:7 lady who later died in Legion sniping quest mobs with a rifle from a vantage point and I tought it was AWESOME. Deleted warrior, born is the human marksmanship hunter.
He as my on again off again main for Legion, BfA, Shadowlands and the start of Dragonflight (occasionaly played Velf hunter, velf/human mage…).
In the second patch of DF, I was again feeling detached from my characters. None of them resonated with me. Race lore, model, playstyle never converged in something pleasant. And then, it hit me: I loved the wogen starting zone, they had better models now, with Calm The Wolf being a major QoL update AND I never tried a worgen hunter. Always tought of them as a melee-exclusive race. Regardless, i created Barthcellos and it FINALLY clicked. This is my main, no questions asked. I will go back and do loremaster with him eventually, get the older reputations. I have no desire to play any other character I can finally rest.
My suggestion is to find out what you want from a character and lean hard in that direction, even if at first feels random or wierd.
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I am an altoholic but I will readily admit that part of that is because Beast Mastery just doesn’t feel familiar anymore.
Mained a BM hunter since Burning Crusade. Legion gave us our artifact weapon with a special attached pet and instead of making that special pet a Legion thing it became the new BM class fantasy. To do competitive damage I have to run with two pets out and be three characters wide instead of it being me and my best friend like it was prior to Legion.
Adding to that hunters have not had any challenge tames since WoD or actually rare rares since Wrath. Our abilities are also not fun to look at. When other classes got their new fun animations we didn’t get much of anything.
I dunno, it feels like over time Blizzard doesn’t know what to do with my favorite class and spec. I’m not going to say they “don’t care” but it seems like they have trouble delivering on class fantasy. I look at bow animations in, say, FFXIV and feel sad. (Also I knew in my heart that the hunter beast mastery-focused Hero Talents would be the ones seen as the most mediocre and underwhelming of all. I was right.)
Sure.
I get that.
At it’s base most are pretty similar. That’s what I mean by being vague.
Like right now. Ele sham has a filler spell. It has a spe der spell. But it’s not based around casting either of those.
The play styles of each can differ quite a bit even if any base concepts are similar.
I think the ease of leveling and lack of borrowed power grind makes a main unnecessary. I’ve noticed myself playing new class each season this expansion.
But I still think of my old main as my main, it’s just I don’t play them as much. And I am still much further in reputations and professions on my main than any of my seasonal alts. There’s just something about doing horizonal progression on my main. I guess it’s because it’s already furthest in all regards and has a history of many expansions so it only feels right to continue on that character.
Alts for me are more to try them out in some narrow game mode for a season, but there’s no RP value in them so to speak.
Oh I agree with that. It’s what keeps me playing. Otherwise I would have quit 10 years ago from the repetition of the same spec over and over. But I can also see how people would get bored with the core aspect of each spec is extremely similar. Most of those people aren’t interested in the fantasy feeling of the different effects their skills have. They see it as a scientific breakdown like the numbers as I represented above. And they don’t care much about their utility skills. They use them b/c they feel they have to. Not because they enjoy them.
I miss having a main as well but I don’t see myself settling back into having a strict main anytime soon. The butchery of Combat into the stitched together abomination we call Outlaw has finally run me away from Rogues entirely. Least fun class in the game and it’s not even close.
