Character Planning - 2

While this should probably have been said before "Part 1", it's still quite useful information. After all, you usually make your so called "main" character first anyway. If you're planning to settle on a server, it helps to look at your long term goals. * Are you planning to PvP a lot? * Do you plan to twink any characters? * Are you planning to dive into Hardcore Raiding? * Are you a casual player, or plan to make a dozen alts on all sorts of servers? So, what use do you have for Alts? There are several very good reasons for choosing and making your alts as early as possible. If you're planning to just play casual, and enjoy the game at your own pace, i doubt you'll find this info to be much use, but read on anyway. There's a few things you'll want to know. * Just about every single person on your server has at least 1 alt, in due time so will you. * At least 80% has more than one. * Most people use an extra character for storing their extra items. A so called "bank alt". * If you plan to be a support / healer class in a raiding environment, it's highly recommended to make a dps character alt for grinding. * If you make your alts early, you'll have to worry less about giving them names later on. Ensuring the name you want is reserved for your own use is thus a smart thing to do. * As soon as you've created your alts, they'll start earning rested XP which will thus reduce the time you need to spend on levelling them. * Levelling alts is a good way to get money, cloth, trash greens for your main character. Professions A large part of the game content is based on professions. These can be used to make all sorts of support gear for your characters, or people in your guild. There are also gathering professions which can be used to farm resources you'll find on your travels, mining, herbalism and skinning are the main ones. As described in part in this post, starting your characters off with 2 gathering professions will allow them to save up a lot of cash early and give them plenty of spending funds to obtain your flying mounts sooner than others. It's entirely possible to level a skill like blacksmithing, leatherworking or tailoring as you gain levels yourself, but i don't recommend it. You'll spend precious time running around farming stuff (on foot) while you could be going about doing quests and getting your character stronger and better. I've done this back in the days when i just started playing the game, both characters ended up having to grind money before they could get their lvl 40 mount. My third character however, already had ~300 gold before he was anywhere near level 40 and could easily afford his raptor. Now, what you'll need to consider is as follows. You want to be getting your characters at a high level fast, and have enough cash to buy what you need (mount). At the later end of the game you'll want to change your main character's gathering professions into something that will benefit you in PvP or PvE as there are a number of Bind on Pickup recipes and crafted items since TBC was released. At the lower levels, any metals, leather, and cloth you farm can be given to guild members or other people in order to have them craft the items you need. This will save you a lot of time and above all.. money. There's really not much need to start off with a crafting profession unless you're either a clueless noob as i was back then, or a masochist. Keep in mind that it's much easier to raise a skill from 0-375 as a lvl 70 character. Knowing this, here's a simple example to plan your characters: * Main character : Mining + Skinning until level 70. Enchanting + Jewelcrafting at lvl 70. * Alt1 : Herbalism + Skinning : Drop skinning when he hits lvl 70 and get Alchemy to make your own potions. * Alt2 : Mining + Skinning * Alt3 : Mining + Skinning or Tailoring to make greens for raising your main's enchanting Make sure you save up as much cloth as you can to raise your alt's first aid skill early and fast. Make at least 4 characters, level them to lvl 5 so they can pick up the professions, then log them out at the inn. This ensures that while you're working on your main character the other 3 will all be slowly gaining rested XP at a rate of 1 bar per 8 hours (5%) up to a maximum of 150%. And, when you work on these alts, your main will also be gaining rested XP so in the end you'll always have some characters gaining rested XP while you play the others. My characters currently look like this : * Lvl 70 dps main : Engineer + Enchanter : Nice BoP helmet, raid utility + ring enchants. * Lvl 70 dps alt : Tailor + Enchanter : To make bags, and disenchant stuff. * Lvl 70 dps alt : Miner + Skinner : To supply my main's engineering skill with materials * Lvl 68 healer alt : Herbalism + Herbalism : To make potions for my main. * Lvl 32 dps alt : Miner + Jewelcrafter : Money making, will explain at a later date, stay tuned. I boosted him to 225 JC as soon as he hit lvl 20. * Lvl 4 alt : no professions, but a lot of stuff in the (private guild) bank * Lvl 4 alt : to check the opposing faction's auction house. You'll notice i got 2 enchanters. This wasn't intended from the start, as it was possible before TBC to simply disenchant anything at any level. He was a lvl 1 disenchanting mule for ages, but i was forced to level him 35, 55, and eventually figured i'd just get him to 70. He provided my main with a lot of enchanting materials troughout his lifetime. I could drop enchanting and give him leatherworking, or blacksmithing, but tbh, when WotlK comes out i'll level this guy up as well and get a large number of shards and crystals from disenchanting quest rewards. More tips later, i think today's post is long enough for now :)