The Place of Alts

Yesterday we had a guild meeting and one of the questions that came up was: Should we look at leveling up alts to filling in some of the "holes" we see in our raid line ups?

This isn't the first time this question has come up but the answer that I gave was very different this time. In Burning Crusade we faced this same question and at that time we decided to do just that, level up alts to fill up those empty slots. The thought at the time was "That way no raid will have to be canceled because we don't have a specific class we need for such and such boss." What we discovered was those individuals then were NEVER able to have their mains there for those bosses because they were ALWAYS on those specific alts. In my case I ended up missing out on some content ENTIRELY on my main because I was ALWAYS required to play my alt and I was not alone in this. I also saw that it negatively impacted the GUILD as a whole because people felt there was no NEED or ROOM for them in raids. So they felt no motivation to level or gear up.

As a result of this the guild as a whole got stuck and unable to progress. On PAPER we had enough CHARACTERS geared to do 25 man raids but they were all on 15-20 peoples accounts. So when Lich King was announced I told all my guild members they were going to have to make a choice. CHOOSE A MAIN. For some of my players this was VERY hard. They had MULTIPLE mains (I myself had lvled 3 equally and they all got almost equal play time but Daraia was without question my main.) But I knew going into LK that if we REALLY wanted to have "progression" like they were telling me they wanted, that is what it was going to take.

As I look out over my guild we are in kind of a strange spot. We HAVE good healers. We HAVE good tanks. It is DPS that we have been hurting on. (Go figure...have to be the only guild in the WORLD with this problem...) We need Locks, we need Shamans. But most importantly we need CONSTANCY. We are a CASUAL Raiding guild. This means we KNOW that everyone has a LIFE outside of World of War Craft. We ENCOURAGE it.

As much as it might annoy me as the Raid leader to have my Top players go AWOL. I want their marriages, children, Real life relationships, jobs, ETC to come FIRST, NOT pixels on a screen. THOSE things will be around LONG AFTER WOW and all this content are but a fond memory.

So what role DO Alts play in all of this?

Personally I DO think alts ARE important for a variety of reasons.

1. They can give you a break from your main. Some times you need this so you don't burn out on your main character, just a change of pace from the daily grind.

2. They can provide needed assistance FOR your main. Be it crafts, funds, mats, whatever.

3. They can give you a new prospective on fights. I know for myself this is VERY true if you only see a fight from the Healing perspective try it as a Melee, a Ranged, A tank. You will learn a TON about a fight that you never knew before.

4. They can allow you to meet new people. Yeah this too...some times we get to well known as our main....it can be fun to "hide" on an alt. I know this is true for me. My Priest and Rogue are pretty well known but my Hunter? VERY few people realize it is me when I am on her. I LOVE that. I learn ALL SORTS of things when I am on Her and I LOVE it. She has her OWN circle of friends. Occasionally my cover is blown and the response is usually something like "I WAS TELLING YOU HOW TO DO THIS?!?!" but that is ok, I LIKE being incognito on my hunter.

5. An Alt just MIGHT end up becoming your new MAIN so don't be afraid to try one. While this was NOT the case for me I have seen it for MANY MANY others. So don't be afraid to experiment. That is what alts are for. We have 10 slots so if you are inclined fill them up and try them out. It gives you that chance to try out trades, etc too.