Where do you find "The Love"?

[Bun-Bun]

What I'm getting at here, is where do you find the love of playing WoW?  What is it that drives you to playing the game?

Obviously there are the four player archetypes:

1) Killer - likes to engage and kill other players, which may or may not include griefing
2) Acheiver - likes to get better and better stuff, or build the ultimate character
3) Explorer - likes to know little details about game mechanics and gameplay, as much as possible
4) Socializer - likes the companionship of their fellow player

I think I fall mostly in 3, with a dash of 2.

But we've had discussions on those before and where people fall in the mix.  What I'm finding lately (and it's surprising me) is that my enjoyment of any group play is substantially less when I'm not playing the tank or healer role.

My experience varies. I've never been the tank, but I've put in some time as a healer. Sometimes being the healer is tremendous fun. Sometimes the DPS monkey is my sweet spot, or the walking toolkit warlock. Nothing is "it" for me, and it can vary quite a lot by circumstance, group composition, and instance.

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Both tank and healer become massively aware of the aggro level of ALL members of the party - the tank so he/she can pull the attention of a mob back to the fold when needed, and the priest so he/she can anticipate heals (so much of healing is timing) and protect those who need it the most.

Maybe it's all the time being a healer, but I always try to keep track of group aggro, especially with my hunter for squishy protection duties.

What am I getting at?&nbsp; Earlier this week I was in a Razorfen Downs run and I found myself feeling bored and useless.&nbsp; Well, bored's too strong a word - I was entertained - but it felt like I was on autopilot.

RFD doesn't give much scope to Warlocks. On the other hand, Maraudon and BRD stand out in my mind that I felt I was working my butt off with Pavis. I think this is less a factor of playing a "support" class and more that RFD is a "perfect storm" of Warlock unkindness, especially with a somewhat overlevelled group.

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Back to my original question - where do you find the love of playing WoW?&nbsp; What is it that drives you to playing the game?&nbsp; This is not a class flame/war, it's an honest question.

For me, the game is a problem-solving exercise. This is why I tend to favor classes with lots of tricks and tactics for different situations. I also like to feel I can contribute to a group effort, and this has so far varied in inverse proportion to the number of people I'm grouped with. :) I'm much more interested in doing 5-man instance runs with oddball group compositions than repeatedly zerging instances for phat lewt.

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I've noticed that people with mains as one of the support/DPS roles will often complain that they're bored, and I'm wondering if this is the reason.&nbsp; I rarely see Priest/Warrior players complain that they are bored with running instances/raiding, because they always get the "high-action" roles.&nbsp; You always hear of people being described as a fantastic tank or a fantastic healer, not a "fantastic DPS Monkey".

My experience with Hykim has been that 5-man runs as main or secondary healer are very rewarding. Raids, not so much so. Perhaps this will improve now that Bliz has included an interface that will let me heal outside the support group druids usually are placed in. I've not been in a raid with Pavis so I can't say how that will work, but a warlock can almost always be doing _something_ so I suspect it will be a better experience.

In 5-man groups, I rarely go on auto, regardless of class and role. I'm too afraid of screwing up. :)

I'll register my mild disagreement on what we are calling "support" classes. In my mind, there is one goal in any encounter - putting the opposition horizontal. The tank/healer duo is a tactic that facilitates the survival of the real point of the spear, the DPS monkeys. I'd call the tank and the healer the support team.