altism

Life as an alt-aholic can be quite strenuous on the mind, although I’d argue that it keeps you sharp. The great makers at Blizzard did not intend for you to only play one toon, or they would lock out character creation after the first toon is born as a level 1 n00b, am I right?! Right, of course I am. I am Gitr and unabashedly cocky in my opinions.

That said, when one hits a major milestone, close enough to smell the next great thing (read: Outlands), one is to abandon ship (regardless of cool gear in hand) and jump on another toon. If not, then alt-ism does not run in the family and you need not attend AA meetings (Alt-aholics Anonymous).

To get the full grasp of the condition, you have to look at the time spent on any one toon. It’s not uncommon at this point for people to have hundreds of days on their main toon, even if they have multiple 60s or 70s, because their main is their true love. Gitr has roughly 25 days of /played time, Deadr around 16, and Huntr and Paladr are still under 10 days. I still have yet to hit level 70 yet, and have 0, read: ZERO, pieces of Tier 1 or higher gear. Every time something dropped that I could roll on, I lost. That kind of brick wall started me on the path of the alts.

Deadr

He’s currently my highest level toon, climbing at 67 for greater and greater things. He entered Blade’s Edge Mountain and Netherstorm last week and looking forward to completing several level 67 quests for the gear upgrades that they offer. He feels powerful and fun to play, but lacks the healing gear to sufficiently main heal 5-mans as a Shadow spec. He has +558 Healing, but is constantly running out of mana because of a lack of… talent. It’s tempting to repec Disc/Holy for added healing, but trying to maintain some level of damage and survivability for the last 3 levels.

Huntr

He’s is my most recently super-neglected toon, despite his status as my second-highest toon at 62 in Zangarmarsh. I brought him out a couple of weeks ago to tame Ironback, but that’s as far as his fun went. The most he’s got going for him right now is maintaining guild control as the guild master of Buttered Monkeys on Velen. I’ll probably go back to him when someone is getting closer to 70 (or 60… or 40).

Gitr

He got an offer he couldn’t refuse on Tuesday in class: transfer to Silvermoon and I’ll get you into Kara and the other end-game instances. That’s right! Runnik is the GL of Dooms Assailants and they have two teams in Kara, with one of them on farm status. Now I need to get to 70. Talk about motivation, I’m telling you. It’s almost enough to drop the others’ progress, but noooooo. That would not be in character. I must remain true to my inner player and ignore my head when it comes to matters of leveling. I still couldn’t resist getting him to level 61 this morning before work.

Paladr

He hit 50 despite the fun he was having in the BGs as a 49 twink with double epic handheld equipment (see above). He still surely wants to hit Outlands as soon as possible, but not without neglecting his brothers. He’s a very fair, honorable paladin, worthy of respect for that understanding. Right now, he’s waiting his turn in the line-up so he can enjoy his new shield a bit more. The double epics twice in one sub-60, let alone any dual weapon epic, is a first for me, so Paladr is quite special.

Frostr

He hasn’t done much, but got to 25 super-fast and wouldn’t mind getting some more fresh air. I’m sure the inn is getting a tad stale after 5 months or so of sitting there wondering if I’ll be back. Unfortunately, he’s on Burning Legion in a nasty PvP atmosphere that really takes a bite out of clothies (have you seen Deadr lately!?) and it’s debatable whether to re-level him freshly somewhere else or pay $25 for my 25 hours of leveling he’s done to take him to Velen. I’m definitely interested in playing around with a frost mage build and see how often I can get stuff to crit.