What if You Had to Choose One Character for Cataclysm?

OH the HORROR.

I don't know about you guys, but I'd be @#$#ed.  Over the years, mostly recently, I have come to really enjoy my night elf priest and my night elf druid alongside my draenei shaman.  I've grown accustomed to the naturey-goodness of my druid's HoTs, the earthy power of my shaman, and the graceful heals of light from my priest.  Of those three, the priest is of course the oldest.  The one I explored raiding on for the first time (in 2005) was the shaman (a different toon, but same class of course).  The totems are what keeps me coming back every time.

So, which toon to pick?  In all honesty, I am not sure, but I should probably figure it out soon.  In the end, I will likely keep my shaman as my main with my priest as my main alt.  I like my druid but it's not really a love.  Druid is the fun, but not serious relationship.  When I have loads of extra time I will probably raid on her too, but I highly doubt that's going to happen in the next millenia.

My favorite aspect of the shaman, again,  is the totems.  Instead of getting just another boring "buff" like Prayer of Water Spirit or Mark of Thunder, we can provide multiple buffs at the same time. These can be further strengthened  by talents to bring them up to par with what other classes provide (talented).

My priest is my squeaky clean, golden elf of grace who can of course do no wrong.  Since she's been around for so long, she's got a solid collection of T1 and T2 gear, a Benediction, some T4, T5, and T6, plus her T7, 8, 9, and 10 sets...and the list goes on.  I picked her back up mid-March after breaking to play Mushee...and she has since surpassed the gear of both the other two characters. Hmm.

I'm going to digress here a little bit.   This is part of my issue, though, that I am trying to conquer--I adore all three of my toons and want to play on them equally. I feel that I have to have great gear on at least 2/3 toons, which has sucked up so much time in the game that I could be spending doing fun things like...fishing in old places...like Azshara, or doing fun achievements...running heroics with completely random people...baking more Delicious Chocolate Cakes for guildies...or questing even....just general fun stuff that I used to do, but never find time for anymore.

And this is another question to ponder today, when you think about which character you would choose.  Are we all too obsessed about raiding?

There was a time, way back in 2005 and 2006, when, if you had a full set of blues from Scholomance, Stratholme, Dire Maul, Sunken Temple, and BRD, you were a great player. You had a solid set of gear that could take you places.  If you had gear from Molten Core, or eventually Blackwing Lair, you were an IDOL!  Oh man, you had people gawking at you from a mile away.  Even at the end of Vanilla, if you had a set of Molten Core gear, you were still seen as an accomplished raider.  Even with all this gear, there was still time to do all the other fun things in the game like fish, explore new hidden cubbies and caves, or just run around with friends.

These days, if we aren't raiding on one toon, we're thinking about raiding on the next, or what we need to do for our third 80, or fourth 80, or heck, even 8th 80...where can we get gear, "ugh, I need to farm badges," "not tonight, I'm raiding..."

Part of this, I believe, is due to the xp cut that Blizzard implemented a few years ago.  The XP required to get to 1-60 was shortened for BC, then 1-70 for Wrath. In  Cataclysm, they will cut the XP for 1-80.  It's extremely easy to get alts up to high level, which means lots of people have done it (aka me).  Then we get presented with the easy gear ladder in Wrath, which, of course, will change come Cataclysm.

Perhaps doing 5 mans and sporting level 80 blue gear will become at least honorable again, instead of "you loser, why do you still have blues on when you can get freebie epics from ______".  I hope so.  Then, alts can finally be played as alts, and feel accomplished even in a full set of 80 blue gear.

So, now that I've derailed my own post, I will summarize.  I bring up the "picking only one toon" because I want to semi-force myself to wean myself down off WoW.  I may not be playing it much next year when I land a decent job that befits a college graduate with a cool piece of paper--my RL epic gear, right?  So, I feel that by picking ONE toon to do ALL my core team raiding on, and ONE alt to play on an offnight, that I will be forced to better prioritize my time spent on the game.  It is a game, after all, and while I may have lots of leisure time now while I finish school, soon I will only have perhaps 1 hour a night, with 3 hours on a raid night to play.  While I'm still single, I figure I have at least 2 hours on offnights after laundry, cooking, and cleaning is done (grin).  I might as well at least TRY to get on that kind of schedule now.

I chose 1 main and 1 alt because playing only one toon, for me, would get monotonous.  I need the second toon to break it up a bit.  Naturally I will keep all my lowbie dps for goofing off on, but my main and alt always have a dps spec.  All other toons, if leveled to 85, will only do 5 mans.  I know two friends who have just their mains, and no alts, due to their demanding work schedules. If only I could limit myself in such a way!  /sigh

For now, for sanity's sake, my shaman will remain my main core raiding team toon and main achievement collector until I decide otherwise, with Nelena as my main alt and secondary achievement collector.  Mushee...well, she's my fuzzy druid and she's just for fun. I haven't raided on her in two weeks and I doubt I will in the future, except for a quick weekly here and there before Cataclysm.

But, I LOVE druid T11, so I will do a tiny bit of raiding on her.  I guess it will depend on how the Cataclysm raiding model looks.

Outside of my three toons, I think the biggest candidates for alt leveling in the future are my 71 mage, 34 hunter, and 30 paladin.  I think I will probably race change my paladin to BE, so I can cover the BE fix.  As far as gnome priest...I don't know whether I will race change Nelena or roll a new one.  It's a tough decision.

Alrighty, enough rambling for now. Would you guys have an easier time picking one toon or are you like me--attached to all three of your toons?