Going back to my roots

With Team Intensity on an official hiatus until 4.2, I'm now faced with the challenge of filling my playtime with something that is both entertaining, and well - entertaining.  While I'm not Gevlon rich, I have enough gold to do pretty much whatever I want.  Granted that cash won't last long if I start buying up all the companion pets I don't have, but it's more than enough to carry me through another content patch worth of raiding.  I'm holding out that everyone actually returns for 4.2, so I'm not guild shopping yet, I'm just treading water (and counting down until Space Marine is released). 

So what to do with all my time?

While I'm picking up Hunted this weekend to get some Gears of War type co-op play in, WoW is still my preferred time waster.  Of course without a regular source of raiding, and I'm not really keen on just running PUG raids for points, I've begun to explore some of the other avenues of play.

PVP is fine and all, but a large portion of this game (at least for me) is the social aspect of it.  While I occasionally PvP on my own, it's usually only if I'm working towards a goal - like getting all my blue PvP gear, or buying another piece of BoA gear.  Of course there's only one reason to buy BoA gear.

Alts

Now generally I'm against alts, but not becuase I don't like them - I just don't like them in my raids (or in my 5-mans when I'm still trying to heal them on my main).  What alts do provide though is an immediate opening into a vast world of knowledge about your fellow players.  One of the first alts I leveled to 85, and did any kind of instancing on, was my priest.  Why?  Because Monger is a priest, and I wanted to learn how the other half was living.  It helped me to learn some of the finer points of playing a priest, and to better understand the 'how' and more importantly the 'why' of his healing style.

Of course alts also offer you the ability to make a boat ton of money while questing.

Enter the warrior

Over the last few weeks I've been playing with a pair of tanking alts, the DK and the Warrior.  The Death Knight was fun for a bit, but I'll have to admit - trying to manage runic power, runes, and cooldowns was a lot to handle while trying to tank in PUGs.  That and you don't get a real taunt (short CD) until level 66 or something.  WTF man.  I also don't feel any kind of connection to my mini-Hulk, he's just someone I was messing with to pass the time.

Then I rolled my Troll Warrior.

I've commented before how I regretted race changing my NElf warrior to a tauren, and that was my one real regret about going Horde.  While I love my Paladin, and I thouroughly enjoy healing, I've been missing the graceful movements of the Nelf warrior.  I spent a lot of hours watching him spin around while tanking, and the Tauren just doesn't have the right flow.  I'm not exactly sure what promted me to pick the Troll this time around, but I'm certainly glad I did.

Playing a new warrior from level 1 up has certainly been entertaining.  I quested until level 15, specc'd Protection, and haven't done another quest since on my way to 45 or so.  Instant queues as a tank are still available, and having a full set of BoA gear (seriously, no BoA shield?) really helps.  I'm still as cautious a puller as I was three years ago, and I think most of the reflexes and skills are coming back.  Thunder Clap plus Rend is a pretty amazing threat tool at this level, and it's certainly odd feeling to finish a dungeon having done over 50% of the damage as a tank.

While I have no intentions of changing away from the Paladin any time soon, I'm definately enjoying a small break while learning the ways of the Warrior again.  I suspect this will wear off right around the time my first heroic pops though.  I'm a man of little faith.