Choosing the right alt

[Treesh]

On another note, there are the points miraji brought up: the need to feed your pet. While pet interaction is certainly fun, I would hate to learn the profession of cooking, for it brings along other things you have to worry about: getting the right ingredients to level it up, those ingredients taking up slots in your bags etc.
If I would plan on playing a hunter as my main, this wouldn't be a disadvantage, but rather an enrichment, but for mere utility/fun alt, learning cooking is certainly another timesink to be considered in the equation.


[right][snapback]92599[/snapback][/right]

I know you've already decided, but I wanted to clear something up. You don't have to get cooking to feed your pet. It can eat stuff that drops from critters or comes out of boxes/crates or you can just buy it. For the fruit and/or mushroom eating pets, I don't even remember offhand a cooking recipe that makes fruits or mushrooms so with those you ahve to find or buy the food. You can completely skip cooking and fishing with a hunter if you so choose and not be horribly hindered by the choice.

[nobbie]

I guess I will level up my mage up to lvl 20 and then decide whether I go with the warlock or the mage  :)

The Mage is a fast solo killing machine. Note however, that both Mage and Warlock solo much slower towards the end-game, and that both have much more problems to solo elite monsters than, for example, a durable (patch 1.8) Feral Druid with his healing spells. If soloing elites doesn't matter, I think a Mage or Warlock are good choices, with the Warlock being the safer soloing class.

[Bob the Beholder]

The Mage is a fast solo killing machine. Note however, that both Mage and Warlock solo much slower towards the end-game, and that both have much more problems to solo elite monsters than, for example, a durable (patch 1.8) Feral Druid with his healing spells. If soloing elites doesn't matter, I think a Mage or Warlock are good choices, with the Warlock being the safer soloing class.
[right][snapback]92607[/snapback][/right]

I will quote the Stupid Mage Tricks video from warcraftmovies.com: "If you can chill it, I can kill it." Anything that is kitable is killable to a semi-well-equipped frost mage. Even the crazy stuff, with some preparation, and a bit of luck. Like in that video, the guy solos Borelgore, and one of the dragons you have to kill for the Test of Skulls horde side.

It's harder, but certainly not impossible.

[Warlock]

I've been toying with a DW Fury spec Warrior as an alt. Seems a pretty fast grinder so far (level 38). Perhaps slower than a Rogue in actual combat and without the utility or escapes but the set up time for the next fight is "Charge!" instead of "carefully sneak behind them" :D

[Raven Vale]

With the hunter revamp I would choose that or rogue , I have hunters on 3 different servers and there is a big difference now . I also have the same number of rogues , but I seem to get out of tight situations better with a hunter at lower lvls . My mage is absolutely boring me to tears atm , been in my late 30's for around 3 - 4 months , levelled a 60 quicker than that . She is just so slooow , I'm hoping things will pick up a bit after 40 , just got to get this lvl 39 over and done with . I have plenty of armour upgrades etc for her when she gets there , its just getting there :) . Rogue can farm cash easier I have found too , bought my second epic mount yesterday , working on my third , woohoo 18g left , just a case of who I want to take to 60 next .

[Walkiry]

For what is worth, if you want low maintenance, I'd recommend a hunter. You can play a hunter quite effectively while being drunk, even if you forget you need mana, send your pet charging into packs of 2-3 enemies with an elite thrown in for good measure, send him in at half life, having to resurrect him 4 or 5 times per session because you forget you may have to throw in a heal or two, wing clip and jump-dance around the enemies shooting arrows here and there, or giggle as you play ping-pong with a mob with disengage/distracting shot, all while you gleefully running from spawn to spawn...

...

Why are you looking at me like that?

[KiloVictor]

I've gone the same route; frost Mage with skinning and mining as my money machine. I love it.

I've been buying all the +dmg (frost) gear that I can from the AH, and tailoring the odd bit (dreamweave gloves and vest, brightcloth cloak, etc.). Talent-wise, I went for the improved frostbolt first, then arcane through Evocation, back to Frost for a few points, and then worked to get Presence of Mind as soon as I could. It'll eventually settle out at 30/21 Frost/Arcane.

Mana efficiency is pretty good, and downtime is only really bad as you're starting to outgrow the last level of conjured drinks... i.e. about the time you no longer spend forever conjuring them. My solution was to buy drinks for the first few levels after I learned a new rank of Conjure Water. Costwise, the lack of other consumables makes this pretty easy to afford.

Killing is all by kiting, of course. Even-level elites are pretty straightforward, except water elementals (cursed frost immunity!). Frost Nova is your timeout, and PoM + Frostbolt lets you snare a troublesome mob on the run.

Damage is awesome, especially coming from my priest - about lvl 50 or 52, I threw my first 1200 crit frostbolt. With later talents in the Frost tree, you can drastically improve your crit chance by rooting with a Frost Nova first, so you can really start to dish it out.

As for cash flow, buying a mount might be a bit troublesome at 40 - at least it was for me because the best cash earners on Kilrogg are rugged leather and throium, and you're not able to reach a lot of it at that level. However, by 50 I had a mount and 350g in the bank.

The other advantage the Mage has is teleporting. Once you can bind in a zone and teleport to get around (finish quests, dump bags at the AH) you really start to win out over most other classes. Yes, the Warlock has the free mount, but you still have to fly between the major cities and the inns if you're selling at the AH frequently. The alternative I guess would be to have an AH alt, but I find that to be a bit much overhead personally. CTMail_mod makes it a lot less painful than it used to be though.

I think you could be about as effective with a Warlock; you can run an Affliction build with almost zero downtime. But having tried to solo lvl 60 elites with my Warlock, I find that I'm still an easy kill for mobs at that level, and fear kiting isn't reliable enough to make it stress-free for me. I've watched Mages solo the same mobs with a heavy frost spec, and I think it'll be a lot easier.

YMMV, of course. But so far, I like it a lot. :)

Kv

[Epi]

As to chosing a rogue: well, I've leveld up a rogue to lvl 13, and while the killing speed is unmatched I probably suck at playing a rogue; i died quite often. :/

That was my thoughts exactly! When my rogue was in her teens, she died a lot too... not sure if this was because of my lack of skills, or is it common problems for all rogues.

You know, monster difficulty jumps significantly from "noob-friendly" levels to somewhat more challenging, and you have to learn new tricks as the old tactics does not work anymore. For some classes it's easier as they learn some new life-changing skills at about this time (like ability to tame pets for hunters or Voidwalker tank for warlocks) and naturally change their fighting style.

Anyway, either I'd adapted to the change, or the rogue's life indeed becomes easier in their twenties, but after I leveled some, the problem of dieing too often disappeared somehow. For me, the big boost was Crippling Poison as it solved my problems with runners (and the major cause of death with pre-poison rogue). YMMV, of course. ;)

-Copoka (lvl 53 human rogue).