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**Android-18** · 09-22-2008, 02:36 AM

Rei, thats how I lvl lol.

Ashe · 09-22-2008, 10:44 AM

Most people level their first character extremely slowly and take their time to enjoy the small points in the game, and that's totally fine and expected. For people new to the game (or those on an RP server where this fine detail observation is encouraged), why would they not? For those that have a 70 or two though, and have their friends at 70 and want to try out being a druid in arenas, or fill a missing raid spot, etc, then I've noticed a lot of them tend to want to level as fast as possible. It really leaves room for any style.

Deo · 09-22-2008, 12:01 PM

I do think that when I level, if it's a new class, or even a class I already know, but I want to take another spec, leveling at a slow pace is the best way to master that style by the time you reach 70, or soon, 80.

For example, I wanted a trapper, a Survival hunter. Everyone was telling me Survival is a struggle until you reach at least 60, but whatever. I started a troll hunter and started putting points in the tree from day one. People were 'lulz survival hunter at 39' when I went in to PvP, despite always being in the top three for damage, and having the least deaths.

Basically, I find that unless you've already mastered a class, it's probably best to take the leveling slow and get a feel for each tier of the skills until you reach 70, that way you'll know the class in and out, rather then having a half knowledge about it, and learning as you go at that level.

But that's just me. I still like to get run throughs of instances for sweet lootz.

**Android-18** · 09-22-2008, 01:09 PM

The thing with me is...I don't party anymore, I don't PVP ever, and I don't raid. I play for fun, and I have my own way of leveling which I feel gets me to high levels quickly. I still understand the job, and really, having to know a job and spec perferctly is for raids and pvp.

Ashe · (This post was last modified: 09-22-2008, 09:36 PM by Ashe.)

Well, Kolli, as a counter arguement... A LOT of classes do not play the same at the high end as they do at the low end. You WILL develop a lot of bad habits that you will later have to break.

For example, after 60 or so, as a Lock, you will rarely use your Voidwalker. Occasionally its good for dailies or something if you plan to burst the target down fast, but if you are needing it to actually hold aggro for a bit, its a world full of fail. And in the early levels you get accustomed to your Succubus being able to tank things to a good extent, while providing excellent damage. At later levels, this simply proves untrue as the bitch drops to two hits with her 3k health (mobs hitting for 1800 each).

A Warrior levels a large portion by spamming Heroic Strike. Till about their 30s. In the later game, you will basically NEVER use Heroic Strike, as its considered nothing more than a rage dump. For the most part, it just does white damage while burning some of your rage that you could put to an Execute, Whirlwind, Mortal Strike, etc. However, you always can find that one Warrior that is still spamming Heroic Strike on something while farming or in an instance and watching him both not holding threat and bottoming out the damage at the same time.

A Paladin gets Divine Protection at level 6. This ability makes you immune to all physical and spell damage for 6 seconds, but you can only heal or bandage during this time. Shortly after, at 34, you will get Divine Shield. This ability activates the same Forbearance cooldown, and you become immune to all physical and spell damage for 10 seconds (rank two of DP brought you to 8 seconds before this), however you can actually attack while in it, although your swing timer is doubled. Where I'm going with this is that (although the expansion is working on this specific one) a lot of people that level a Pally get to 70 and keep both Divine Shield and Divine Protection on their keybinds. Why? Shield is vastly superior to Protection in every way, and has (until this expansion) been intended as a replacement ability over Protection (just like Locks get Demon Armor and replace Demon Skin with it, same exact ability so they should just be different ranks).

For a Rogue, its not too bad since you will learn how to stun lock mobs while killing them, which is a skill you need as a Rogue, but even has Sub spec later, I see a lot of Rogues that just spam Sinister Strikes and then try to pop Eviscerate, as freakin Sub spec.

In your example, you pointed out how a Hunter leveling as Survival will know the spec by 70, and that's fine. On an RP server, and in a lot of guilds, people want to raid with any and whatever spec they just like playing, and that's totally fine for the most part. Survival Hunters ARE needed in progression content, although only one. Well, they are liked, about as much as an Enhancement Shaman or Demo Lock (99% of the raids for stuff like SW will not have a Demo Lock as it simply will not keep up with an equally geared Destro Lock, however, I've seen good enough Demo Locks that their guilds will keep them raiding even if the fall behind on dps by about 600-700 dps, and it is that drastic.) In a progression guild, where they are looking to push as far into the raid content as possible and kill Kil'jaedon, they will want to maximize their dps and spec the absolute strongest specs they can.

Meaning people WILL respec. You can level Ret on a Paladin with hopes of being the best light swinging swordsman around, but (until the expansion) you will have a very hard time getting into a strong raid guild like that. If you are just not interested in that stuff, then again that's totally fine, enjoy it and go pvp and screw around with friends. You will have a bit harder time getting five man groups as well though, due to lack of CC. However, there will likely come a time where your guild will really need a Pally Tank for aoe trash in Hyjal, or a strong Holy Pally for healing if one of the healers falls short. They will ask you to respec, even if just for the day, and will expect you to be competent with every role of your class and know how to perform more than just one spec. The reason is that you are playing the _______ class, not a specific spec.

If you level as Feral Druid all the way to 70 and never learn how to play as Resto, you are in the same position as a guy that speed leveled to 70 and then respecced Resto, if your friends need a Resto Druid to do arenas with. You can always just tell them "Nah man, I live and breath cat form, I'm only going to do arenas in cat" but then you can't get too frustrated if you find you've lost more often than winning, as the cat forms are simply not that viable in arenas. Although it is just a game. Equally, if you are Feral, nearly every single five man group will expect you to tank, not dps in cat, and your strengths lie in your versatility with your class.

Now to the TL;DR of it all.

You will, regardless of how you level, find that you have to relearn the class at 70 and learn each spec. Each spec plays entirely different, and you WILL respec. This gains you no ground over someone who leveled quickly and then learned more about the character.

I didn't realize it till about 8 months into BC on my Lock raiding, but I actually didn't know nearly as much about Warlocks as I thought I did. I was 60 for months before BC, playing it as my only character, and then went to raid. Except I tried to raid the same way I tried to level. I valued Stamina as my most important stat, completely not caring about Spell Damage or even worse, Spell Hit. Those didn't matter leveling as much (my second lock stacked Spell Damage over any other stat). I found that I couldn't use the VW in instances and raids, which was news to me. I was at the bottom of the dps charts, and I mean I was playing affliction, just throw up dots and rethrow them all up whenever they are all gone, right? Wrong. I wasn't paying enough attention to my actual dot timers, and I should have refreshed each one AS it was fading. By letting them all fall off, imagine how much "tick" damage from each of the dots I missed out on? I had to spend a lot of time replacing them, when I could have kept them seamlessly ticking through and then bolting (not Draining Life, as I was mistakenly doing in raids). I fixed that, and no joke, as soon as I focused on my timing more and locked the durations together, I went from about third from the bottom to the very top of the meters in a single fight, on Prince in Kara. It was that big of a deal, and it had just never "clicked" before what I was doing.

Ok, actual TL;DR finally:

You will respec characters and have to learn how all three specs of said character perform in raids, which is not always the same way you perform while leveling.

If you are on a Role Play server where you live and breath a single spec of a single character and play a Holy Priest that will only spec Holy and refused to train a single Shadow Spell such as Mind Control because it "breaks the Holy code", (and I've seen that), then that's what you enjoy and as long as you are enjoying yourself and not harming others (by popping into their groups and wiping them, lol).

If you play once a week and don't really care if you are behind the totally drunk hunter on damage because its just a game and you usually secretly go afk in the middle of boss fights at random and just leave yourself standing there, then that's fine as well, whatever you enjoy (just know that other people will also group with you based on if they enjoyed grouping with you before).

People play the game for different reasons, and I'm not in any way knocking that. I'm only posting from a competitive point of view, which may or may not be shared by others. So take it how you wish.

Additionally: A large majority of the "you" in here is not specifically directed at Kolli, but moreso "you the player".

EDIT: About the RP server comments, I'm referring to specific cases encountered that may be contained into specific quarantines of RP servers and not necessarily all of them. Its a totally different discussion for a different thread if one were to go into it.