It never fails. When I start playing an MMO I typically always role the same types of characters. Healers, or support classes. This would be why I have a plethora of healers on EQ2, EQ, LotRo, and yes, even WoW (80 priest). As it would happen though I learned an important lesson this week. It’s ok NOT to play your ‘usual’ class in a game. When I was playing WoW as my priest I was constantly stressed. I found healing people (mostly people who had no idea what they were doing and were very literally all over the place) difficult, I found myself questioning my ability as a healer because I would take the blame for everyone else’ actions. This is the wrong way to play WoW. If you play this way you will slowly drive yourself crazy (as I found out). It made LFD one of the single most stressful things I’d ever done. This week I decided ‘it’s a game.’ If you’re not having FUN playing a game, and it’s work – why are you playing it?!
I like WoW. I like how casual it can be while I’m playing other games like EVE. I like that I can log in and almost instantly be doing something instead of having to wait around for hours. What I didn’t like, was playing my priest. I decided to start over with a ‘new’ main since I was starting over on a new server already. I have played various characters through to the 20’s before, but had never gotten a warlock past that magical number, even though it was one class that I had the most interest in.
For the past three days I spent almost all of my in game time working on this warlock. She’s now level 61, and I have to admit – I simply love the class. I mean, in that WOW look how FUN the game can be way. It wasn’t WoW’s fault that I wasn’t enjoying my stay. It was all about me playing the wrong class.
I looked up some warlock mods. Necrosis is now my new best friend. I also got deadly boss mod, which I wonder how I survived without. Suddenly the game is not this stressful horrible place that I spend my time but it’s actually FUN. Who would have thought. In order to level the warlock so fast I decided to get a recruit-a-friend account between myself. I paid $20 for the base game and gained 10 days of burning crusade which allowed me to create a blood elf and level through the content quite fast. The benefit of a recruit-a-friend account (aside from the 300% bonus in experience which is simply insane) is that the RAF can ‘grant’ your main veteran account levels. For every 2 levels they gain, they can grant one (so long as the veteran character is not higher level). This works up to level 60. Not only do I have this new warlock that I enjoy very much, but I can level another character to 30 and grant them enough levels to reach 60. I haven’t decided what character I want to do this with yet. I’m thinking shaman or perhaps paladin.
It’s nice to know the game is still fun to me, now that I’m playing the right class.
Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!
I played a healer for a while in WoW and had the same frustrations with other players. My main is a rogue and I know from my experience there that dps classes have ways to manage their aggro. Eventually I made it clear that I was going to stop healing players who were over-aggroing. I got the support of the other players in my groups, some tanks even went as far as refusing to pull aggro from repeat offenders.
More than other games I’ve played, in WoW it’s the tank’s and healer’s job to keep each other alive, and dps just need to keep an eye on that threat meter.
The warlock has been a lot of fun for me as well. Even if I’m only about half your level ;)
I use to always play healers or hybrid healer/damage. Now, I usually play mostly damage that might have some type of healing (Feral/Balance Druid for example). Over the last few years, healing is something I do to top off my HP before I go rip something else apart.
Sadly, it is harder to find groups as ‘just DPS’; at least in WoW.
I tend to play healers also, but have actually been getting away from that lately myself.
So says the guy about to go buy a logistics (healer) ship for tonight’s fleet fight in EVE. . . . . .
One thing I do like in DDO is that people are *expected* to be more or less self-sufficient (except perhaps on raids) and the cleric is considered to be perfectly within their rights to “not heal stupid.” Beyond that, clerics are only expected to heal during fights — after the fight, you drink your own potions. Kinda nice how it takes the stress off the cleric a bit.
Heh, good for you that you can get out of it ;) I play a healer and tank nearly all the time (in fact, all the time. Every high-level character I’ve ever had in an MMO is a tank, healer or hybrid.) I have a specific reason for this that I’ve never been able to get rid of: I view the dps role (as it stands in WoW: just dpsing) as basically for people who can’t be bothered to play something more vital. I realise it’s wrong, and I’ve seen many people who are to the exception, but I simply can’t shake it off that in a group situation I’m much better being a tank or healer. And it takes ages to find a group as well :O