Just to give you something fun to chew over;
Do you have that character in the game, the character that you play instinctually, without having to think of what buttons to click or keys to press?
You may play other classes, and enjoy it, maybe even enjoy those classes more than this class. You may even be a master of those other classes, and hold the admiration of your co-raiders or dueling victims.
But is there that one class that, when you play it, you don’t spend your time choosing which buttons to click. Instead you’re manuevering and fighting, changing tactics on the fly, and seeing your thoughts translate into action on the screen before you.
It’s a truth that, the more you practise the mechanics of motion and physical technique, the more natural and automatic those motions become. The more automatic the basic movements and actions become, the less your concentration is given to initiating and controlling these actions, and the more your attention is freed up to pay attention to the world around you, to see what is happening, to choose to react or even to anticipate, and to plan out your own possible responses in advance as you go.
At one remove, I’ve often suspected that people play or physically control their character better or worse depending not only on skills, but on attitude.
I think that some people may play a character stiffly, it may feel stilted or uncomfortable, if the person doesn’t like the basic concept of the class, or doesn’t understand anything about the class’s playstyle when they pick it up and it turns out to be a playstyle that doesn’t suit their personality, doesn’t lend itself well to their instincts.
I see this once in a while, when someone starts playing a class because they think they’re supposed to. Maybe their relative or friend chose a tank or DPS, so they choose a healer to complement it in teams… but don’t like their chosen character, so they are mentally blocked against ‘getting into the groove’.
Maybe you’re the kind of person that instinctually likes to close with your opponent and get your teeth in. Choosing a ranged DPS is going to fall against your instincts. Likewise if you’re the ‘go for broke’ berserker, an in-your-face kind of DPS player, and you play a class where you are told you really should go slow and stealth in behind your opponents to do the most damage. The numbers may support their reasoning for playing that way, but the dagger between the ribs from behind ain’t your thang, and it doesn’t feel smooth.
Maybe you’ve seen or felt the other side of the coin. You chose a character when you first picked up the game, not knowing anything about it. The character concept sounded cool, you liked the race you chose, and you played it doing your best and having fun… but later on, once you had (without even realizing it) learned what all the various playstyles were, you chose a new toon as an alt for fun, and suddenly found that things just ‘clicked’, and you discovered a brand new favorite toon, a character that you loved and just started rocking the house with.
Maybe suddenly you found yourself soloing things you had trouble with or found impossible on your first character, and you decide that the new class is more fun, because it is obviously more powerful than your old one, right?
I think in a lot of those situations, it’s that you played and learned the game on your first (or even second) character, but now you’ve found a class and spec that suits your personality very well, you’re mentally psyched up and loving the mechanics and playstyle, and so you’re playing with confidence and feeling everything come together. Your own attitude and comfort level with playing the character helps make it seem so much less stressful, and much more fun.
Attitude is huge in playing your character well and enjoying what you’re doing, no question.
But above this factor of attitude, is that next level of mastery.
The game has been out now for a number of years.
Many years, years spent playing a character in very intense, fast paced, light speed combat situations where you are rewarded for being able to think fast about other things, your overall situation and environment, while playing your character.
Years spent growing with your character, learning the intricacies, mastering the mechanics and moving on to the higher level tactical play.
Are you the one that has the positive attitude, has gotten ‘into the groove’, loves playing your character and everything about it, and has played for so long and worked so hard at getting better that you’ve actually gotten to that state of no-mind that frees you from worrying about something as mundane as a button click, and opens up an entire world of pwning face?
I’m just curious.
How many Zen Masters of the Art of Pwning Face are out there these days in WoW?
And are there more Zen Masters from the PvP devotees than the PvE?
Does striving against other players lead you to master your skills faster than fighting the AI?
I’m just curious. We’ve never really had an opportunity to see what the long term effects are of playing the same computer game for 4 or 5 years, or even the same class or character, and now there might be hundreds of thousands of people who have done just that, and devoted thousands of hours of game time to do so, more time than many black belts breaking bricks all around the world have devoted to their art.
Will there someday be martial schools of pwning face, where the skills of cyber war are distilled and refined, and the colored belt is awarded once the elite is soloed effectively or the large group is kept successfully alive through a vicious long battle agasint multiple waves?
Will a watching class groan in sympathy when a student fails to get off his self heal in time, and dies in the examination?
Personally, I have an inner smile at the thought of wandering players in the game having mastered their skills and gone far beyond them, Zen Masters exploring the World of Warcraft in peace, their bunny pets at their side, quiet masters in simple robes suddenly jumped by a force of 4 or 5 opponents who intend to gank them hard on a PvP server… and getting their butts handed to them by that lone master wielding a grey quality weapon, moving in a blur of flashing pixels and hopping in intricate bounces around the screen.
The manga generation of my youth had Lone Wolf and Cub, (great movies, btw), but maybe this new generation of WoW players could have the Fuzzy Bunny Bandit, or the Stoppable Force Warrior.
Or maybe even… the Butt Kiting Bear?
Just kidding, just kidding. :)
Have a good morning!
Hmm… I have a friend who thinks that every long-term WoW player has *a* class that really speaks to them, even those of us who have a zillion alts. For me, it’s definitely my shaman. I have four 80s, but none of them feels as natural as my shaman. I can play her easily as enh, ele or resto. Unfortunately, the GM of my casual 10-man raiding guild also played a shaman and insisted that I raid with my pally instead. I didn’t really enjoy raiding as a pally, so when folks quit raiding and started to drift off from the guild, I rolled an ally shaman on another server, and I’ve been leveling her up and loving it. I’m back in my element again! But it is kind of funny in PvP, now that you mention it. I might look like a nubby little shammy on the surface, but I’m a zen master underneath! lol
Great post and an observation that is near and dear to me. I came to WoW with lots of FPS background (and before that RTS games that were shelved upon arrival of our firstborn all those years back.)
When I tried WoW it was intended to be just a “see what its about” thing, I came to class selection based on my comfort level with a role in the FPS “team”. I knew I was a “get in there deliberately” kinda guy. Hang on the edges, flank the opposition, and if at all possible engage at a time of *my choosing*. I picked Druid tank, thank you very much. I knew from my team-minded efforts that I was not necessarily the charge in first guy, so I wanted utility to compensate for the group where needed. Druid. I wanted to analyze the situation and take the fight to my ground. Tank. And that’s where I’ve ended up.
Do I move quickly enough for all parties? Not necessarily. Am I the OT of choice in our guild? Absolutely! Am I comfortable being “just” the OT? You betcha. The OT role was made for me and is very “Zen” or instinctively. The druid lets me be what the group needs tactically at this time.
I have also noted some of the “forced” feelings of other classes. In order to fully enjoy the game AND to better grasp my chosen in-game vocation of tanking, I’ve taken on an end-game raiding healer who off spec’s to ranged DPS. So I can Tank, Melee, Ranged or Heal with those two toons. (Thanks be for dual specs!)
What is really interesting is that the ranged DPS role is the most challenging for me. Yeah, I know. Stand and plant and keep the rotation up. Its just NOT my thing. I do it, and I’ve learned more than I expected to about the challenges for the ranged DPS corp. I find I LOVE kitty (melee) DPS. I think its because I’m “in there” again, can revert to bear if needs be, and the rotation is just so fun ’cause its all situational. Healing is neither a chore nor a passion. I enjoy it thoroughly, but not so much that I don’t readily volunteer to go DPS (ranged) if the party needs to in order to fill out the roster.
I guess I’m fully behind the notion that who we are makes some of the fundamental approaches, and thus role *and* class selections more “natural” than others!
Once upon a time I was a Zen Master, stealthing my way through the flag room in WSG, sprint and speed pot at the ready, following my fear bomb and jetting out of the flag room carrying my stolen treasure, leaving behind 8 confused Alliance with a quick charge and a rush of air!
But those days are gone now. It’s no longer a game of epic battles with planning, trick casts (hearthstone looks like regrowth!), bear tank kiting, and a plethora of other druid tricks. No, today it’s a game of upfront damage. Surviving the burst so that you can burst back. Class composition begins to trump individual skill. The synergy of skills begins to outweigh the synergy of players.
And a lone bear sits in WSG pining for days long gone. Reminiscing about the epic flag holds, the three caps, the steamrolling of PuGs, the vicious preform vs preform battles that could last hours. This steam engine is living in a combustion world and chugging along.
Let’s just say I’ve played the same feral druid for the past 3 years. My boyfriend has played the same balance druid for the past 3 years. We have multiple alts, none of which are 80 yet because they don’t hold our attention long enough. My highest alt is level 50 and a frost mage. After playing a bear for so long, a caster is counter-intuitive to everything I’ve come to know. Sadly, they have turned into Auctioning and Crafting alts… which isn’t so bad I suppose. I don’t think either of us will be giving up druiding for quite some time.
Excellent post. I’ve been playing WoW for a little more than a year now and have 7 toons at various levels. My main is a tauren druid that I leveled to 70 as moonkin and then switched to tree. I was always a decent ranged dps but healing has become second nature to me and I really enjoy it, especially when the tank is less than perfect. I guess I live for the challenge. lol When dual specs came out I made a moonkin offspec but with slightly worse results than before so I’m now gearing up to try a tanking off-spec to see how I like it :-) Thanks for all the pointers.
Ya I have to agree, I have hit Zen in at least 6 specs I won’t say every aspect of each of the classes. I have 9 characters 70+ 4 of which are 80. Of the specs I get the Zen state with are Arcane Mage, Fire Mage, Prot Warrior, Feral (Tank) Druid, Ele Shaman and Resto Shaman. I can play each of these with out really thinking all that much. Not far behind are BM Hunter, Shadow Priest, Disc Priest, Afflock, Retadin, Protadin. The classes I just have not really gotten into were Rogue and DK. The DK just because I have been too busy leveling everyone else and the rogue was just painful. Ya it is close to a Cat Druid but even when running as Cat I would end up in Bear form by the end of the fight if the mob did not die in 5-6 hits. Usually because I would take on 2-4 mobs at the same time. So the rogue feels so weak because I can switch to tanking form.
I definitely picked druid on the “wow it seems cool” basis, luckily I fell in love with her. She clicks, but I don’t feel I’ll have mastered her until she can Boom Boom as well as she heals. And I want so badly to master my rogue, and learn to effectively DPS. It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.
I have played and raided on a Priest as both holy and shadow, and I am currently loving my Death Knugget. Thing is I will always be a Hunter at heart. I suppose thats why I have three of them at 70 or better, one of which was my first to 80.
I started in ’04 as a Warlock. Had fun with him in raids, but never liked PvP with him.
I rolled a Warrior alt in ’05 sometime. Had fun with him in PvP, but never really got anywhere in Raiding.
With TBC I rolled a Paladin. And I finally found a class that I could enjoy ALL aspects of the game. A class that could raid or PvP with minimal fuss. The class did suffer from some limitations (glaring limitations at that), but I loved it. He is still my main today.
At the end of TBC I finally leveled a Druid. And turns out, it’s ALSO a fun class. Versatility is such a wonderful trait.
Right now my Paladin is still my main. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Right now my Warlock is my “primary” alt. That is likely going to change, though.
Right now my Druid is level 78 and on the fast track to replace my Warlock as a “primary” alt. SUCH a fantastic class.
I choose my Paladin because of one I had in the pen and paper days of rpgs. I hated the ui for about 15 levels, bemoaned the lack of a ranged attack until later patches. Yet somewhere along the way came to be quit fond of the old boy. I have healed tanked and dps raids in each of the WoW flavors. To steal from Barbara Mandrel I was prot pally when palls weren’t cool.
I know what buttons are where on 2 completely different specs. I’m not yet the Zen master but interested in motorcycle maintenance lessons.
Gotta be hunter for me, my first class. For PVE I am simply unstoppable. I have two 80 hunters (horde/alliance), both BM Oh wait, one is 75 the other is 80. Anyway I probably have 100 days /played on them.
Then my druids. My 80 resto druid is just extremely easy to play (PVE). My feral druid (51) is quite simple and I get it pretty well. I don’t tank yet though. I really don’t do PVP, i know i suck at it. Although I want to give it a shot on my DK (75) , because, lets face it, they are extremely OP. I want to be the class that destroys the opponents for once.
I have been playing for over 2 years. My husband tried to hide the game from me because he knew I would be hooked. I spent about a week picking my first toon. Druid! I loved her every part of her. Of course being new to the game I made alts, just to make sure I really liked the druid best. Since the people I played with in real life had toons I was playing catch up with. Once they found out I made a priest alt it was all over. (If only at that time I had know druids could be great healers.)
So my group of friends needed a healer and the priest was it. No I would not say I am a Zen master of her, but I know her spells blindfolded. Every time I get in my raid group I always hear “Don’t worry Red is hear!”. That makes me feel good lol. When ever there is an instance or raid someone it looking for help with I grab the priest. I don’t even think about it. PVP no problem. Yes I will die fast but it is ok. Sure as shotting that flag man made it to base before I died. Don’t worry that tower held before I fell. I may be cloth but I am mighty!
Any time I need to goof of (which is all the time) I am on the druid. Dailies, cooking, fishing, flower picking, yep the druid has it covered. Usually in the skimpy outfits too. I dont see her goinig to raids. She is just to much fun for the work of raiding.
lol..yea..I think I can identify with that feeling. I’ve got alts that never made it pass level 20. My DK has become sorta a farming alt.
Im on my bearcattree most of the time. And since my constrol schema is sorta built around the druid class, other classes can kinda feel a tad clunky to run. Cept for the pally which I have recently just discovered.
Here’s my take on the state of ‘Zen’ as you call it BBB. I’ve got 7 out of 12 action bars packed onto my mouse. Of which I can trigger instinctively without looking.
eg in Bear, I know that scroll Wheel left is Taunt, right is Charge. Thumb 1 n 2 is SI and Frenzied, Fore 3 n 4 is Enrage and Demo Roar. Middle 6 is FFF.
So.. in fights like Noth where we had to pick up multiple adds quickly, it’s target 1, middle 6 and then target 2, Scroll left. And if I really need to move, it’s scroll right. If shit hits the fan, it’s Thumb 1 n 2, followed by clicking barkskin and lifeforce on the bars.
It’s less stressful for me I guess, cos my thoughts are ‘actioned’ immediately.
Ditto for Kitty DPS.
Scroll Wheel Left for Rip, right for FB. Thumb 1 SR, Thumb 2 Tiger’s fury. Fore 3, Feral Charge, Fore 4, Cower. Middle 6 FFF.
So keeping up a kitty dps ‘rotation’ is usually, 1 for rake, Fore 1, 2 for mangle, Fore 2 Tigers’ Fury to top up energy, 3 for shred to 4 CP with a Middle 6 thrown in when energy gets low to fill the gap. Scroll Wheel left to Rip. Cower when energy is low and have a free GCD.
mangles on 2, swipes on 4. shred and lacerate on 3, rake and maul on 1. Miam and bash on 5.
Healing on the other hand…. er… no zen yet..haha
still trying to figure out a good interface schema.
Ive sorta settled in a click cast/button cast middle ground. Using Grid and Clique. Right click on unitframe for rejuv, shift right click for LB. Middle mouse for Regrowth.
Left click on unit frame to select it as target. And all my main heals are on my 1-6 action bars. Swiftmend on thumb 1, shadowmeld on thumb 2.
Nature’s swiftness on scroll wheel left, and self cast HT on scroll wheel right. so the oh shit is scroll wheel left and right.
However, I can left click to select a unit and then scroll wheel left and use my left hand to hit 6 for a regular FAST HT on him.
hope this is somewhat useful.
kthxbye <3
Oddly enough the class that’s really “my” class is rogue. Though I like Warrior more. Still, on Blizzard’s Tournament Realm I played a rogue and even though I haven’t really played one since classic aside from test realms and such I was very comfortable with it and just seemed to naturally know what I was doing. No more alt leveling for me though!
I’ve been playing the game for a little over 2 years now. The first class I rolled was a Rogue and while she was my first 70 she wasn’t my first 80. The class that really has me hooked is the hunter. Once I started playing that class there was no going back.
I have to agree totally with the OP, there absolutely a Zen like feeling when you find the right class, and even more so when you get the right setup for that class. I started off playing a priest because I’m always drawn to healy types in these kind of games, and always have been. He was my first 70. Then I moved on to a fire mage, because I got tired of getting my clothie butt kicked every time I accidentally aggroed more mobs than I meant to (my priest was holy for all 70 levels) and he was a blast. Picking fights with mobs and having other people go “Damn, what did you hit him with?” was so much fun. I definetly felt a bit of the groove with him.
But where I really hit my groove, was with my Pally, as a tank, and I haven’t looked back. Dual-specs made a great toon even better, because now if I don’t feel that I can tank something (or simply don’t want to) I can swap to DPS to bash some heads in and let someone else tank, but I have the gear on hand, just in case….and I love it. My priest and my mage have both made it to 80, but when I log in, it’s always the Pally who gets the love, and if nobody needs some pally lovin’ I’m currently working on a druid, because as a tank I have absolutely fallen in love with the trees. Nothing brightens my day like joining a pug for something, and finding out the healer is a tree. :)
This is so very true. I’m a collector of alts, I love having characters for every occasion.
My hunter was my first love. I played him to 60 and although his name has changed and he became a she through a very strange goblin explosion, I still count her as one of my favorite characters. Right now I’m levelling a priest – healing the crap out of instances at level 75 right now and on target to raid at 80 with my guild soon.
But.
None of those is my Zen character. My resto / feral druid (dual spec) is so effortless, so reflexive to play, that there is no comparison. She’s my main – there is none higher. I am the sole full-time resto druid in my guild and throwing HoTs is as natural as breathing. But when it’s called for, I can don my tank spec and face down Kologarn better than our guild’s MT pally. The druid just /works/ for me. When I play the priest – as I did today – it’s work. I have to consciously go “dps is down 3k health. Wind up Penance. Hit ’1′ to cast” – whereas my druid would have scrolled the mouse up, and thrown a HoT and moved on without a second glance.
So, there are indeed characters you are so familiar – so practiced – and so comfortable with, that playing them is second nature. I’m just glad for me it’s my druid. :)
I’m an obssessive-compulsive button masher. I love pressing buttons every single GCD, and I like being mobile while doing so. I started WoW as a rogue. Ooh yeah, that was fun. I’d charge right up together with the tank, strafe around to the rear, mashing my buttons all the time. That was fun, even if not quite as fast paced.
Then I became a tree. The ultimate button masher of the healy classes. God do I love it! You should see our Hodir fights. Yeah, you’re supposed to be jumping up and down to get rid of the frost debuff (like Nexus). But this tree is not content to merely jump. No sirree! I run circles around the whole room, figure-eights, moonwalks… you name it! All the while healing the main tank. Pure ecstasy! Lifebloom, Rejuv, pause and Regrowth, 2, 3, 4, Lifebloom, Lifebloom, pause and Nourish 2, 3, 4, sidestep, sidestep and back to the front.. and Rejuv… and Lifebloom.. and Swiftmend Nourish Noursh… wooo!
I am a leaf in the wind. Watch how I soar!
Hmm.. there are so many. Holy Priest, Survival Hunter, Feral Druid, and my Affliction Warlock all are second nature. I enjoying playing those classes. I’ve tried all classes, but those are the ones that I have that zen like experience when playing them.
It wasn’t always like that with my Hunter it took about a year. I stopped playing my first BM Hunter, really hated the playstyle and so I played many other classes. I learned a lot about not only those classes Hunters too. That came from observing other Hunters. When I came back, I picked rerolled another Hunter but I choose Survival, and never looked back. I was in that groove, what was a chore before was effortless and I didn’t have to ‘think’ about what to do. I just knew which moves would get the job done.
Initially, I tried to pick a favorite but I’ve realized that I cannot I like them all, my mood determines which one I’ll play. It’s a great feeling when you conquer something that seems impossible to do, but you are able to do it effortlessly, knowing exactly what moves are needed to accomplish the goal well… that’s a great feeling.
Hands down, the one I liked the least would be the Death Knight. I have made two and although it was easy to pwn face I’ve never been comfortable with the class so I don’t play them.
Very interesting thinking there Mr. Bear.
For me this is very current, since I have been doing some new things over the last few months.
I have always been a Moonkin – ever since I could put that point into the Balance tree, that have been my form of choice.
For raiding and instances I was very comfortable – the rotation was so easy in BC, that there was plenty of time to do other things – I became the ‘healer guardian’ (mind you, at that time the tank actually could loose aggro, even to the healer) and had most fun when other players made a mess of things, so I could be challenged. Yet, the role of DPS was rather soothing, with little responsibility than staying alive and not pulling aggro.
As everybody else, I also had a hunter to fool around – and had great fun leveling it, but not so much fun DPS’ing at 70.
When the expansion hit and we needed tanks, I rolled a DK – fast leveling and easy to get crafted gear for. However, tanking is more than defense rating and lotsa HP, which actually had me a bit scared, since I would hate to mess it up for everybody.
It was a great challenge, and I was tanking and leading the way with much more confidence that I would have imagined – of course it was a great help to have a good band of players behind me, so that I only had to focus on not messing up while I was learning.
I thought I had found heaven! I had soo much fun being challenged all the time, that I forgot my fear f messing up – and was just enjoying to stretch the healers mana pool by chain-pulling.
Then a few months back, we were short of healers … And with the reasoning; ‘dual-specs’ are out soon, might as well practice a bit of healing.
Respec and get guildies to craft a bit of gear and into Nexus we go – Grid setup like Phae said and everything, and oh what joy that was!! This is what I am supposed to do – keep stuff alive at all costs is my new game and I love it.
I am not going to claim that I am a Zen master on this, that would be outright cocky after only a few months, but I really feel I heal by instinct already. It just ‘feels’ right, healing is my Groove.
Regarding the PvP vs. PvE subject; we all react to situations we anticipate, I suck at PvP because I do not know what to anticipate and lack basic knowledge, just as a Rogue PvP’ing an instance boss is lacking basic PvE understanding. But I think PvP takes longer to master, with a steep learning curb – due to the huge amount of situations you might find yourself in when PvP’ing.
“Maybe you’ve seen or felt the other side of the coin. You chose a character when you first picked up the game, not knowing anything about it. The character concept sounded cool, you liked the race you chose, and you played it doing your best and having fun… but later on, once you had (without even realizing it) learned what all the various playstyles were, you chose a new toon as an alt for fun, and suddenly found that things just ‘clicked’, and you discovered a brand new favorite toon, a character that you loved and just started rocking the house with.”
BBB, you’ve pretty much summed up what’s happened almost exactly to me, twice. When my larger circle of friends decided to pick up the game and roll Alliance, I started off with a druid because I liked the idea of being able to do damage effectively, take damage effectively, self-heal (big plus there, having played a troll priest) and stealth (there, too). Here and there I got WoW-ed out and took some lengthy breaks, but their enthusiasm and freshness to the game gave them a big enough start to leave me in the dust. As BC came out, I was rolling up in the 50′s, got to Outland, and stagnated.
I have always loved that druids were inexplicably allowed to use fist weapons, even if in Vanilla WoW there weren’t nearly enough of them and there didn’t seem to be a point to having them. If there was, I don’t know that there is any longer, but the idea was another big draw to the class. The draenei and shamans became available for the Alliance, and the draw of being able to box things was too much for me. I rerolled and managed to catch up to my buddies and even get to a point where I could help out some of the more casual ones. It was a good thing.
Wrath came out and I realized that I had wanted to play a DK since WCIII was out. Nelves got a revamped shadowmeld and it hit me that the idea of a stationary, but mostly invisible plate-wearing class would be awesome. I went with it, picking up my past love of engineering, and was the third person of my friends to hit 80 and have been helping people do some of the harder content since. That was pretty awesome for me too. As somebody that plays the game for enjoyment and to spend time with some of my more wayward friends, just being able to lend a hand was an awesome experience for me.
After a time, though, I kind of hit my high point. I could tank pretty effectively and adapt well to situations that had the potential success written on them, and failed miserably on the situations in which I was intended to fail miserably. I was still pretty bad at PvP, but things were all right.
I decided to revisit my druid. Having liquidated all of his items, transferred most of his bags, and generally abandoning him in Honor Hold, I picked him back up, finally keen to Outland’s (and Northrend’s) game, and have had a blast getting him to 80. At the moment, the absurdity of what I am able to do has been my biggest draw back. I love engineering, and I love bears, and being able to pop a “Bear”-achute, fire off a cat rocket, and then tackle something from the sky in order to avoid taking fall damage brings a very visceral kind of enjoyment. Flight form, too, is a whole new experience for me. The first time I was kicked out of it flying over Wintergrasp, my automated, minute-long parachute, coupled with the momentum from leaving flight form while moving, propelled me very gracefully over half of the battleground. I was impressed.
I am impressed.
I am a bear. I have bear powers.
Y’know, it’s funny, because I *have* a warrior. But anyhow: I don’t even think it’s necessarily classes so much as roles. I’m leveling my warrior as prot (it’s so easy!) but I’m considering switching to arms or fury, and here’s why.
On my DK, I have two specs: one for DPS, and one for tanking. In my DPS spec, I am a master of my domain. I know my rune timers by heart, I know how much runic power I have after each rotation, I know what cooldowns to blow before Bloodlust and what ones to blow after it’s applied. I slaughter bosses. I focus-fire or AOE the adds when told. I don’t stand in the fire. I hold the sparks down. I do so much damage it’s like I’m made of damage.
When I switch to my tank spec? I may as well be a gibbering idiot. My rotations seem to suddenly go out of whack. That hunter who’s seemingly forgotten where his feign key is starts climbing up Omen and I panic. I don’t know what does what, I don’t know when things are off cooldown, and oh God did Rime just proc, where’s my Howling Blast key?! (Well, okay, that part’s an exaggeration: I know where all my keys are instinctually by now. But you get the idea.)
So while, yeah, leveling my little warrior (36 now, I believe?) as prot is pretty fun, I’m not really sure I’m looking forward to trying to tank in endgame. I think DPSing might just be my true calling.
Oh, also: Lone Wolf and Cub is an awesome manga. I like your style, Bear.
I feel I need to apologize for the wordiness that my enthusiasm has inspired in me, but I had one last emotion to try and articulate.
I have never been a big fan of numbers. Gearing up for raiding is one of the more painful things I have had to go through, second to fine-tuning what needs to be changed in order to be the most effective Tank/DPS/whatever I can be.
As such, I’ve always relied on different indicators of success. When my DK hit 80, having 25k health unbuffed was a scary and new thing to me, but I realized that it was good. A lot better than I had been up to that point.
When I revisited my druid, I thought I might someday use him as an alternate tank. I got him to 80 with few hiccups and gearing him up has been a breeze, even though it is not completely finished.
My guild/circle of friends has been running some of the newer 80s through Heroics to prepare them for raiding, what we consider the culmination of a lot of collaborative effort put into the game by us all. A couple of days ago, a group invited me to join them for a Halls of Lightning run, and I asked to bring my druid to tank instead of my DK. Mostly focused on just having a good time, they agreed.
Tanking with a DK came relatively easily. Tanking with a bear, although I was skeptical, has made it apparently much easier on my friends. We managed to wreck that place’s face, accidentally getting all of the Heroic achievements for it on the first try, and with no casualties. I could not effectively gauge my progress, despite my friends’ assurances that it went really well, until I popped Survival Instincts and broke the 50k health barrier. Numbers are big and pretty and many times look like they mean something, but really aren’t spectacular without the consideration of other things. Nonetheless, the run was smooth. Perhaps the smoothest I had ever tanked, weirdly, and having two of my more experienced friends along only helped it. At one point, our shaman healer popped earth shield on our ret paladin and let him go do his thing.
That same night, I tanked through a Heroic Culling of Stratholme run and we got the bronze drake with four minutes left. I am by no means a hardcore player, but I know big changes when I see them. Being a bear has been a big change and a big help, and with all but two of my gear slots as high as they will go before raiding, I have asked that my druid take the place of my DK as my main tanking character. I can only hope that it goes up from here.
Lone Wolf and Cub ftw.
“Assassin. Lone Wolf and Cub. I take your life.”
I think it’s that attaining Zen mastery and letting the PWN flow through you organically that makes it so hard for me to do… well… ANYTHING with a vehicle.
There you are, flowing your way zenfully through the world when all of a sudden the character you’ve worked with for so long disappears inside an enormous, clunky, and LOUD tank and all those spells you do0n’t have to look to find get boarded up behind a new interface with just five buttons available. Your turns and automatic responses to danger are constrained behind a new turning and responding mechanism…
I can manage alright with the jousting now that I’ve begun to learn how to play this new “Pony” class, but one-time quest vehicles? Why bother?
It throws off my zen, man.
I have nothing like that for PVP. I only have one level 80, my first character, a hunter. But, even in PVE, it isn’t like that. I’m thinking about shot rotation, trying to get it right, and it’s not a flow. I used to think it was, I’m more comfortable in it than most other classes I’ve played.
I recently, though, switched a Paladin I was playing to Holy. And after an initial period of learning the class, I’ve flowed into it amazingly. When I play my Paladin, especially when I’m in an instance healing, I don’t think spell rotations or cooldown timers. I’m watching the situation and reacting on instinct. Years of playing a hunter and I never got into a flow like I have with my holy paladin after just levelling from 66 to 72.
LMAO! My blog is called Zaralin’s Zen, and Zaralin is the character (resto druid) that I play instinctually. If I start to conciously think about what spell to cast and what buttons to push, I end up getting flustered and have to clean up my messes. If I just let it flow, things always go well.
When I first came to WoW, it was from Asheron’s Call 2, a game I loved, a game that was then cancelled by its parent company (which forced my move to WoW). In that game, I started off with an Invoker, a caster class something like WoW’s shaman with moving ghosts instead of stationary totems. My guild needed a healer, so that character was respecced to a Healer, which I just didn’t mesh with very well. I then rolled a Zealot, something like a fistweapon dual-wielding Rogue type class, and absolutely fell in love with it. That character was so much fun to play and I was always “in the groove” when playing her. Everything just flowed.
When I got to WoW, I re-created that Zealot character as much as WoW would allow, by making a Rogue with the same name, and using only fistweapons (to this day!). It was fun, but obviously it wasn’t quite the same. Some aspects of the Zealot’s playstyle were in the Rogue class, but others were missing or simply different. I can’t fault WoW – it WAS after all a different game, a different world, and different mechanics required a different class. With the Rogue, though, while I enjoy playing her, I still have to think about which buttons to push for the best damage output and rotation.
I then rolled a Holy Paladin, thinking I was going to hate it because my healing experience in AC2 didn’t go that well and I didn’t feel part of the healer class there. What do you know? I ended up absolutely loving healing as Holy Paladin! I just feel rather than think through which spells to cast for best efficiency, my hands move to the buttons instinctively and I’ve prevented many a wipe by reacting rather than thinking. When I play the Holy Pally, everything just absolutely flows right. I never thought I would enjoy playing a healer class as much as I enjoy it in WoW. :)
In short, one can’t really re-create that zen playing experience from a different game in another one, but by just giving new characters and experiences a chance, one really can find a new favourite class that they never thought they could enjoy before.
For me it is more finding a spec for each of the class. For instance when it comes to healing playing on my priest is second nature especially as disc spec. Even though my shaman is dual speced with resto healing on her just isn’t as natural and feels like i’m forcing things but playing elemental on her is so much more fun. So for classes and specs these work best for me: Shaman-Elemental, Warrior-Protection, Rogue-Mutilate, Pally-Protection, Priest-Discipline, Hunter-Beast Mastery, Mage-Arcane. So remaining classes being warlock, druid, and Death Knight.
Warlocks I could never get into and my highest only got to 22 and was deleted to reroll a druid to level with my wife. Death Knight I just haven’t played enough to decide which spec I enjoy best. I’ve rolled 3 or 4 of them and the highest is only at 66. My druid was my main during BC and at that time every spec was natural and smooth. For some reason though I haven’t been able to get into him since the expansion and he is still level 70.
When I started WoW 2 and a half years ago, I had decided to choose between shamans and druids. Both could ‘shapeshift’ and both were hybrids, and I liked the sound of that. In the end I decided on Druid because my friends played alliance (alliance druids, actually, all of them), and I couldn’t make a shaman and play with them.
Got my druid to 80, met several druid friends who are now RL friends, and any time I get bored I just change specs.
My shaman alt that I made when BC came out, is level 26.
I count myself very lucky that Alliance couldn’t make Shamans in old WoW :-)
I found my *zen* class while I didn’t even realize it.
I started this game with a priest. I wanted a shaman, but my friends were alliance and TBC wasn’t out yet. So wanting a casterclass that could heal too I chose a priest. A nightelf priest, like I remembered from WC3. Not having a clue about the game, the mechanics and even the game genre back then I had quite a struggle playing her. I leveled discipline specced, because it felt like a strong tree to me back then. When I turned 70 I was still not playing very well, also my healing wasn’t great. I didn’t use all my spells, some of them seemed downright useless to me. Grinding was a pain, even more after I respecced holy. The priest didn’t seem to be my kind of class. But it was what I had.
While I was leveling, I had 2 encounters with druids that made me like that class a lot. Once when I was about level 30, and a druid I grouped with healed me with a clearly stronger heal than I had, and then he stealthed away in cat form. I always liked stealth in games, but I didn’t like the rogue. The druid seemed much better. When I later grouped with a druid in a ST run, who was offhealing, offtanking, dpssing, crowdcontroling, and had a nice buff for us too, I was very impressed again. I told him how I admired the multirole talent displayed, and he said he loved the class and that he was made to be a druid. I was a bit jealous at that moment, I wanted a druid too.
Besides the druid I had a second class I liked a lot: Mages. The artful way they played with mobs, whole groups of them, and the sheer blasting power seemed so much better from the boring straightforward playstyle I was used to. Also the free drinks, the portals, sheeping seemed like very nice things to have. Grinding with a mage guildmate, who nuked 3 mobs in the time I did one made me decide I wanted a mage too.
Leaving the priest for what she was, I started leveling a (feral) druid and a (fire) mage simultaneously. When I played the mage, I loved the mage, when I played the druid, I loved the druid. Both classes felt much simpler to play, yet still much more versatile too. I could play different styles with both of ‘m, keeping things interesting. I used every single spell in their books, and came up with different useful combinations regularly. Stealthing through big groups with the druid, and then taking on big guys in bearform. Or just brute force AoEing whole groups with the mage, or kiting a big guy. I loved it. I thought I found my classes.
But at a certain moment while leveling these, the guild I was in was in desperate need of a healer. I decided to help and dusted off my priest. Then, during that run, I more or less rediscovered my priest. I actually loved healing with her. Spells that I never used began to make sense. From that moment I started seriously gearing up my priest and it’s my main to this date. Healing is now indeed like zen. I play around while healing, dpssing in the meantime on simple fights, running circles around bosses while not allowing myself to stand still, only using instants, and still end up on top of the charts with nobody dying. Since WotLK I haven’t even completely leveled my druid and mage anymore. I did level a lock for grinding (a class which I used to hate, but like now too), but since dual spec came out my priest also got her shadowside: healing and hurting, it’s perfectly balanced yin yang now :)
Wasn’t this the way of the rogue before they were truely nerfed a few patches ago? I mean rogues went around in their loin cloth, a stick and preceeded to beat the snot out of the most heavily armor and armed warrior. Truly, I would rather have this bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
And unlike Moondancer (above) I truely love the deathknight class. All of my hunters, mages, lockys, druids are retired because I found them changed so much from when I learned how to play them, that I don’t want to go back and relearn (sort of like going back to college to get the next degree). Thank you for another great article. pssst – hows work going?
I’ve tried every class, played them all to at least 20 (well, played the DK from 55-60 and decided I didn’t care for it). It didn’t take me long to realize that I have absolutely 0 aptitude for playing a caster. I also don’t like hunters because something about the pet being there really throws me off. I may go back to a hunter some day – because I think they are probably the ultimate solo character and every so often I like to be alone – but for now it’s not me. So, no casters and no hunters. That leaves me with melee (sans the DK).
I’ve tried paladins and rogues more times than I can count. And most recently I did manage to get a paladin to 80, but that was the first time I’d ever actually gotten one past 22. Rogues are a similar story. I think I have a 45 rogue sitting around on some server, but I normally don’t make it past 22 for some reason. Druids I’ve fared even worse with. Despite my love for the class (first class I ever rolled) I hate the first 19 levels with such a passion, it often keeps me from even making it to 20. Druids don’t even have a playstyle until cat form, IMO.
That leaves me with my warrior. My first 70, and also first 80. If I have a connection with any class, it’s the warrior. And specifically protection. Something about it has always been just “right” with me. I’ve been playing my paladin as protection as well, but it just feels different. Even though every single GCD is spoken for on the paladin, it still somehow feels less interactive than the warrior. I think maybe I enjoy the anticipation that the warrior tank brings. Patiently waiting for that Revenge or Sword and Board proc to show up. With the paladin, it’s just watching cooldowns.
And let’s not forget Charge. From the very first moment I charged a mob, I was hooked. I guess I like that whole “bring the battle to them” mentality that comes with the warrior class. When they introduced the Warbringer talent I thought I was dreaming. I back-burnered the warrior while leveling the paladin but I’ll be returning to him soon. Can’t wait to hear that charge sound coming out of my speakers again…
I understand what you are saying. For my brother, the mage was the first character he rolled and he never looked back. He can do things with that toon that I can’t even comprehend, let alone duplicate even with his direct instruction. All while he watches TV and eats pizza. I mean, it’s really humbling.
For me it was a little different. Started in 2005 with a hunter, based on my rl affinity for animals and wanting the ‘pet’. Couldn’t get groups, so switched to a priest. Got to 60, raided, T2′d myself up and my hunter still sat in IF for hours praying for a BRD PUG. The priest was always awkward and uncomfortable. Then BC can out and I thought “yay, a new start, I can get my hunter going again.” No such luck. I played my priest to get to see content, but every time I’d log onto the hunter it felt like going home, but even then something was missing.
Years pass and things change. Then comes the Deathknight. Rolled one up for the fun of it, just to see. Now…what hunter? I know I’m one of a gagillion others out there, and I’m not the best by far, but this is the class I should have been playing from the beginning. I am not a Deathknight Zen Master by any stretch of the imagination, but I am definately walking the path.
how to find a big bear face?