Becoming bored of your char?

[meth]

I was wondering if the players of Paragon & all other users of this forum become tired of their character at some point and if so, when?

As an example, here is my own short story: I started WotLK on my Shaman, brought him to 80 and did Naxxramas 25 (=farmed gear) etc. with him, became bored, switched to Priest, got him to 80, did raids, became bored, picked up my 40-something Warrior, got him to 80, did raids and then went back to the Shaman when a 2nd healer for ICC10 was needed and brought him to almost the best gear possible for me. I always felt I had done everything I could or wanted to do on that particular char.

And now I don't wanna touch any of them and just level my alt Hunter for Cata.

Do you have similar moments / phases? Especially Paragon members with BiS gear etc.. do you still enjoy to log on your main and raid / do stuff with him or would rather like to play / level an(other) alt?

And would you sometimes like to switch your main but know that this is not easily possible in a small and dedicated hardcore raiding guild?

Note: This ain't about the "How not to get bored" article but about how much fun the main still is once you have practically done everything you can / want to.

Lots of question - maybe also lots of answers? :)

[Yumie]

When I got back to WoW right before the launch of WotLK my boyfriend sent me one of those RaF invitations so we leveled 4 toons to level 60. A Druid, Shaman, Hunter and Priest.
The class of my choice was the druid, so I leveled Koljo to level 80 and stick with her all the way until ToC. I was farming reputation, achievements and mounts in general, but at some point, since all I could do was healing on my guild (They never let me dps or anything like that "Oh, but we need your heals" they used to say) I got so sick of her that I started to level my shaman, as Enh.
I had my priest at level 80 as well, but I didn't really enjoy playing human ):
So I got my shaman to level 80 and they still wouldn't let me reroll >:(
Then I gquit, made my shaman my new main and never touched my poor druid again Ahahaha

By that I've learned two things:
Number one - When your main spec is healer, you're always going to heal during raids. When you play DPS you can get to heal some fights when someone is missing; So, main speccing healing? Never again :x
Number two: Not to "overplay" your class/spec. Must be because of that that I have 8 characters now. There's always a class that I'm missing to raid/PvP/whatever with.

Haven't really thought about switching mains again, but I'd be a very uncomfortable to switch mains knowing that it could mess with the guild progression or whatnot. I still don't know what I'm going to do Cata, depending on how Enh shamans are going to be, not really excited with it right now ):

Ps: That's quite a text wall :x

[Trollerskate]

I had this problem for a while when I first started playing. Every class felt like a shiny new toy that I wanted to try. The problem is that when you first start out with WoW, you don't realise just how much time and effort it takes to be able to really get what you want from your class.

I've switched around a lot but that's partly been because I founded a competitive guild with some friends and basically leveled a druid to initially cover all raid roles whilst we were recruiting. I didn't really enjoy the druid so a priest, rogue, mage, warrior and hunter soon followed. The hunter is what changed things for me.

I figured out that DPS is what I enjoy. I don't mind helping out with healing or anything, but I like being a DPS. I thrive on the idea of competing with the DPS of others and boosting the survivability of my raid group in whatever way I can. The hunter suited me in the sense that you can do an awful lot with it. Outside of raiding, I started to solo a lot of content with mine and I've manged to clear ZG, AQ20, MC, Karazhan, egg boss and bear boss from ZA and virtually all 80 normal dungeons (haven't tried heroic except The Nexus yet).

Being able to push my class as far as it could go is ultimately what made me stick with it.

[xenophics]

I think the whole question comes down to what motivates you. Some of our members get bored about their class and reroll. Usually it's easiest during expansions, but it's possible to gear a new toon form 0 especially if the guild benefits from it.

Most of the "I'm bored" comes from the specs people are playing being not competitive enough compared to other classes and specs. The people who want to top damage meters (usually) don't like to play healers or tanks. Then there are those whose goal is to be on the top, and who want Paragon to be a great guild. They can roll anything that is needed just to support the progress. Usually those people end up in the most important roles where you need 100% attendance. For example Lazei rerolled from shaman to protection paladin in Toc and has played it ever since. On the other side these people stick to their not so competitive role (even if they wanted to play something else) because they are needed in our setups.

Myself I know I'd never reroll from priest. I might start healing if I really, really had to but I've been playing this character so long and I just love priest mechanics. So the class itself and the mechanics motivate me together with progress and of course grinding achievements etc to one character. That has kept me with one toon for so long.

My advice is to be clear about your goals. If you can't play what you want try to find the motivation by thinking you are doing important job. If you keep changing your mind (and rerolling) it might be difficult for your guild since they need to keep on gearing your new characters. This slows the progress. On the other hand if you play in a casual guild is there something to wrong in trying everything and changing the character you play every 9 months?

[zYN]

I think the whole question comes down to what motivates you. Some of our members get bored about their class and reroll.

I don't think this "some people get bored about their class" is happening much at all. Mostly there's just very few things you can do on your main to make it any better at what that character is supposed to excel at, except for that one raid/week.

Maybe in Vanilla when stuff was new and playing other classes was something new and cool and there was plenty of stuff to discover that other players hadn't thought of yet (much like with DKs in Wrath). The few re-rolls I can think of are due to different reasons. Being underpowered and lacking utility, mostly.

Most of the "I'm bored" comes from the specs people are playing being not competitive enough compared to other classes and specs.

That's not boredom then, though. That's frustration when you're limited by the mechanics of the class - even if you play perfect, you do worse DPS than the mouth-breathing faceroller, possibly resulting in not getting a raid spot. There's a significant difference between the two. Actually getting bored with your class is a symptom of getting bored with the game or the role you're playing.

The people who want to top damage meters (usually) don't like to play healers or tanks. Then there are those whose goal is to be on the top, and who want Paragon to be a great guild.

You probably just worded that a bit funky. The alternative would be you're implying that not everyone in the guild would want the guild to be the best it can possibly be. I can't imagine that there's one single player in the guild who wouldn't want that.

They can roll anything that is needed just to support the progress. Usually those people end up in the most important roles where you need 100% attendance. For example Lazei rerolled from shaman to protection paladin in Toc and has played it ever since. On the other side these people stick to their not so competitive role (even if they wanted to play something else) because they are needed in our setups.

I can't imagine there being more than a handful of people who would be against re-rolling if given the same freedoms, assuming it would help out the guild. The example you gave is a pretty bad one, since Lazei is guaranteed a raid spot regardless - even if the setup would be weaker as a result. It's pretty easy re-rolling on a whim or playing some obscure support spec that might or might not be needed when you can join raids whenever you please.


On to the OP

Best qualities in a class to avoid getting bored or frustrated are pretty easy to quantify for me:
1) Mechanics that set apart mediocre play from good, and good play from excellent play
2) Mechanics (as many as possible) that allow me to play smart during raids
3) Mechanics that need for me to think on my feet to optimize playing, instead of monotonously hit 1-2-2-2-1-2-2-2-1
4) Some raid utility
5) Ability to spec into a different role
6) As little RNG in the DPS role as possible

This works pretty excellent for me. During progress it's easy to set yourself apart from the other players of the same class by simply playing better. Be it by doing more DPS, doing less mistakes or dying less (or all three), doesn't matter. As long as your class has some raid utility, it more or less guarantees you a spot as long as the class itself isn't total crap on a particular encounter.

After progress you can keep testing your limits and keep refining your play. Pretty much every week it's possible to do things slightly better (by slashing down on the time you spend out of melee range, making better decisions etc), which keeps things from becoming stale for a long while.

[xenophics]

Most of the "I'm bored" comes from the specs people are playing being not competitive enough compared to other classes and specs.

That's not boredom then, though.

.
Hence the " ". I was mostly thinking about why people reroll in general. As you said earlier, not many people become _bored_ about their class here in Paragon. But some might use word bored for frustration etc which results in rerolling.

And yeah bad wording, obviously tried to say that some people aren't that interested in what they play, they just want to play what's best for the guild.

[Chris]

I never got bored of being rogue, even if i have leveled a few in these years.

On other side, while many rogues i know ended up like pallies, i ended up being a DK. Not for boring but for curiosity, i now feel like i've been dk my whole life, but still; "...rogue blood will always run through my veins..." or so i've heard from other players, maybe it's gotta do with me walking around mobs lol.

[Thasilian]

You seem to consencrate to leveling and getting gear fast for your 80's, which is – atleast on my opinion – very boring gamestyle and leads you only to repeat the circle of leveling and farming decent gear and then getting bored again and starting leveling again and again and over again. I wonder how have you managed to not quit this game because of getting bored to it. You clearly have exact goals on your characters and when you reach them, your interest is all gone.

I have played WoW from couple of months from publishing the game and then in every expansion and I have never switched my main because of I got bored to it. It is hard, maybe impossible to master your character completely and do perfect job with it. I always have been and always will be dedicated pve player so there is lot of farming and doing same things in my playing, but I wont get bored to it. That is because of I always try to make my performance better, you can always learn new things about your character and there is always a better way to do your job. I keep testing, thinking and calculating different styles to do my job in raid and I never think like ”it actually does not matter if I wont care more about this, this is easy and I dont need to give my full performance for this boss, we will get the loot anyway”.

My goal has been to reach full knowledge of my character and ability to give perfect performance on doing my job, but sill after raiding over years I still havent mastered it all. You should not settle to your character and to your skills after you have 80 level and well geared character on your hands, you could try to reach to perfection with it, I can guarantee that it will give your hands full for many years. :)

And it is also important to get knowledge about the whole game, all the classes and details of different skills and encounters. That is the reason why I have leveled alts of every class in game, I want to know what different situations feel from every raid members eye-view so it encounter would go smoother for all and what different classes can offer for this exact encounter is valuable information when there is no instroductions about how to do this boss (meaning that none has done it yet or there is nothing published about how to do it).

I tried to say this in a nutshell, hopefully you can get the idea from it. ^^ I just came from writing my A-levels (tough they are not exactly A-levels in Finland but close enough) and am bit tired but wanted to say something in this topic since it is actually very important thing in my playing and I would like that more players would think same way.

[meth]

Thanks everyone for their replies so far, just two small notes:

1. I just wanted to collect views / opinions, I am not in the search for "help" :)

2. To Thasilian: I just do the instances I can with a small guild of less than 10 active people and PUGs. So I am not the fastest to receive gear :)

[Thasilian]

Thanks everyone for their replies so far, just two small notes:

1. I just wanted to collect views / opinions, I am not in the search for "help" :)

2. To Thasilian: I just do the instances I can with a small guild of less than 10 active people and PUGs. So I am not the fastest to receive gear :)

Yeah I did not mean to say anything like you would be after loots or something, just wanted to give you bigger goal to reach when ever you feel bored. And being in a small or not so hardcore guild does not mean you could not try to reach it, there is always something to learn on your character (and the game) no matter how long you have played it. :P