I've been playing a mage for a long time now as my main, yet since TBC came and guilds saw huge changes and reconstructions, I've found myself constantly struggling to find a place in a group, a raid or a raiding guild. Just to give you an idea, my last guild had 3 priests, 7 warlocks and 12 mages. After weeks of low successes in Karazhan, where I still spend most of the evenings wiping to Maiden and Moroes or waiting outside karazhan for a spot because the only guild recruiting mages is full of casual raiders, going into raids in greens freshly dinged 70, and wiping from common mistakes and being undergeared. Right now on our server forum there are tons of recruitment posts. And the server has at least 30 alliance guilds in Karazhan, no joke. But all of them want healers, and a few need tanks. No one wants DPS classes.

So last week after talking with a hunter friend from another guild who was telling me that not only are they full on mages but half their healers have a mage or lock alt they would like to switch to as a main, I decided to reroll. I have fun playing my mage, but at this point the only thing I have left to do is wipe in karazhan, sit outside karazhan waiting for more wiping, or stand around in IF. I decided to go dreanei priest, because they are the most wanted class and I never played a healer before.

I personally know 2 other mages who rerolled, one to a shaman and one to a warrior, 1 rogue who rerolled to a shaman, and one warlock who's almost ready to. DPS classes are just so much more crowded than tanks and healers. So now to the point of this thread, who else rerolled since TBC came and why? Is there a lot of people from your guild who did? For me it gives me 3 benefits: give blizz time to retune the raids, the chance to experience a new role, and an increased chance to get into high end raids. We'll see how it goes.

We had, 1 Hunter reroll to Rogue he is now topping our dmg meters, 1 hunter, 2 mages, 1rogue reroll paladin all doing really well, I personally had wanted to reroll to my lock but i got told i'm not allowed. I think thats the only people that actually did reroll and we did have a excess of mages like i'm sure a lot of people did, but they've filtered out to a reasonable 5 or 6

changes from server to server, guild to guild i guess. we spent a lot of naxxramas with 1-3 rogues, and 6-8 priests.

we were then very low on mages for gruul, but thankfully due to the 'gear reset' its easier to recruit decent geared people who perhaps started late pre-tbc and never could catch up to a raiding guild but had the ability for it. either way we've always had a high amount of healers.

we had one rogue reroll to his warrior, and two mages to shaman and a returning priest to shaman. thats all though and they caught up gear wise fine after getting in kara raids.

I feel it's modestly ironic that the majority of people who rerolled paladins in our guild were healers prior to rerolling. 3 priests, 1 shaman, 2 warriors. 1 warrior rerolled warlock. That was about it.

We try to rotate DPS as fairly as we can but it's pretty obvious on new encounters that we end up taking the DPS who are more willing to pot up in order to push the dps even further. Hunters who don't use agility pots, mages without supreme power flasks, etc....are the ones who usually find themselves sitting out.

Honestly though, make sure you enjoy playing a healer. I'd -much- rather play a DPS class I enjoy and raid once a week then play a healer I don't enjoy and raid every night.

However, I'm that rare stupid breed that loves support classes so I guess I lucked out.

In reality it seems most paladins I meet want to tank instead of heal. Some also want to DPS... for some reason.

As for enjoying a class in raid obviously that's key and it can't be known until you try it, but the reality is most people want to play DPS, and as fun as that may be, it leads many of us excluded simply because of the number issue, at which point there is nothing else to do.

Your Paladins have been healing for 2 years and want shiny new roles like the other hybrids.

DPS classes are easy mode, and require very little thinking to be played. That is why people like them. The great thing is all those hunters and mages end up on the short end of the stick come raid time and pay for their laziness when it comes to get raid spots (as in "how you like easy mode now?")

If you reroll, make sure to pick a class that is part of the holy duo, like priest or warrior. Everyone loves priests that is for sure. Either that or move servers. Funny thing is our guild is struggling to find rogues, good rogues that pay attention and know their class.

I played a war to 60 so I know the crucial classes are harder to play than pure DPS classes. I decided to go priest because I prefer casters, and never liked the rage mechanics. Level 33 now and another month or so I'll be almost back to where I was thanks to the TBC gear reset.

What a startling insight.

That's funny, given that you don't have a guild in your profile, given that you claim to be a rogue, and given that the rogue name you claim is yours does not exist on that realm in either the US or Europe. Oops!

I definately feel the same way as the OP. Being in a guild that had up to 8 mages available at most times - and being middle of the pack to hit 70 I found myself on the outside looking in. The cut down in raid size paired with "old cliques" = me not seeing Kara with my now defunct guild. I have pugged to Aran but sadly as a mage I find myself in low demand. (Not that I care too much because I would rather PvP anyways but I still would like to see some content.)

Eh, no class is easy mode if you are playing that class to maximum potential.

Maybe what you meant is that DPS classes are so numerous simply because they can farm, PVE and PVP with generally the same spec/gear versus class that simply cannot do this, or cannot do this on the same level as said DPS classes.

I can look at it form both sides, honestly. My very first reroll was from a 50 mage to a new priest. I wanted groups. I wanted in. I wanted a friends list a mile long and the secret to being everyones friend. I wanted to fill holes in a guild and be important.

I never really loved my priest from 1-60. I grew to love my priest at 60 when that mythical group power actually came through. I got a good raiding guild. I was in high demand. For the entirety of 60 play I enjoyed my priest and all the perks that went with her. What I finally realized about 6 months ago is that shadow wasn't going to be a phase for me- that I really crave the dps role in raids.

It wasn't for another several months before I realized that I'm simply not cut out for being a shadow priest full time. When people wistfully say "if we only had a holy priest..." I feel compelled to respec for them... and I spent a lot of my month at 70 bouncing back and forth between specs trying to single handedly manage a guild shortage of healers for 25 mans while still trying to convince myself I was going to be a shadow priest again "someday". The problem was that I didn't have the gold to put out a shadoweave set or consumables, and I certainly couldn't farm them holy- and there were priests who were actually willing to put their foots down and say "I will NOT respec to healing." who had the gold and farming ability to surpass my gearing.... so every day I spent being holy and trying to force progression was one day further behind I was in the rat race for a shadow priest spot- even after a *year* of being the guild's primary shadow priest.

So when the decision time came and I rerolled, I took one look at my options and made a mad dash towards mage.

Sure, I might not get as many groups. I might find it harder to get into a raiding guild I like (If I go back that direction). but it's worth all that, and more, for the ability to play the game the way I want- as caster dps without feeling the constant pressure to conform to whatever flavor of priest the guild needs to complete RaidX *this* week.

The grouping is great. The ease of finding a guild is nice. But I'd think long and hard about whether you'd actually be happy in the long run.

I'm shadow for leveling now but I fully intend to respec holy at 60 or 70. There's no sense to switch to a priest if you just want to DPS, I still have my mage to farm. It's nice to be #1 on the meter but it's nicer to raid and progress. And I always have the possibility to spec shadow at some point, my mage can't spec to heal.

You should never, ever, roll a class because you think "someone else will like me".

Never.

Roll whatever class you personally enjoy, and can play well. Something that you excell at. Be harsh with yourself - if you suck at something don't pretend you don't. Stop and either learn to not suck, or abandon it and find something you don't suck at.

This is really really important for most people who read these boards so I'll repeat it: You will be much happier as a person if you choose a class you excell at and enjoy doing what it takes to excell at, than if you choose a class you percieve to be more wanted.

I'm a very solid player; I feel I could probably pick up any class in wow and expect to be among the best in the class at it by 70. That said - I'd be absolutely miserable as a warlock. I hate that class. All the minutia that others seem to find enthralling? Bores me to tears. So even if the group I wanted to play with desperately needed warlocks, I'd tell them "sorry, I can't help you".

Try and remember you're playing this game to have fun. That instead of playing wow you could be working out, or going to the beach, or sailing, or having sex with gorgeous women (or men, depending on your preference). You should demand a certain level of enjoyment from the game. Don't just become an e-wallflower, desperate to be ravaged and willing to conform to whatever the fantasy of your e-group indicates is needed.

I spent 6 months on my priest perfectly content to heal 7 nights a week in raiding content before I cracked and went shadow the first time.... spent almost a year bouncing back and forth between healing and dps.

Although, agreed, having a dps toon of the highest level helps fight that off for a long while =) I loved my mage alt- but leveling her to 70 wasn't in the cards... and my reroll wasn't class based- it was a big jumble of other stuff, but it did give me a chance to choose differently the second time through.

Having played two rogues on two different servers I was in a very similar situation as the OP. We had a lot of very active rogues, but only a few healing and tanking classes. This got worse 3 weeks ago, when some folks quit or went for a long break. Rather spontaneously I decided to reroll to a warrior (as did my co classlead and GM, who rerolled to a priest). So far, we have been leveling as fast as work schedule and other RL commitments allow and enjoy our new classes. If we were to remain on our old class we had 4 rogues for 1 kara raid...not exactly a perfect situation, not to mention two other rogues, who are leveling right now. I should add though that I did a fair bit of tanking on my paladin alt back in early 2006 and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I have at least a clue what I will have to do in PVE. PVP is a slighly different matter though
I might also add that I am kind of powergamer in a pretty casual game, putting more /played time up then 80 % of the folks and using this time much more effective than most. I fully expect to reduce the gap to zero within 2 month.

It's all about utility though. There are things shadow priests bring to a table that no other class (nor a Holy priest) can. Similarly, there are things feral druids bring to a table that no other class (nor a Resto druid) can.

Of course, you're right in the sense that rerolling a priest if you want to DPS is probably a bad choice since a significant fraction of priests who have been healing for a while have specced shadow; holy priests are much more in demand than shadow as a general trend...

Slightly off-tangent, but in my experience it seems much harder to find feral druids who can spec/gear properly than shadow priests, as well, so there might actually be more luck rolling a druid specifically to play feral than a priest to play shadow.

Personally for me, maybe I'm a little shortsighted, but I've never felt the need to reroll... especially after the various 2.0 changes. I've been respeccing back and forth depending on what the guild (plus ex-guild) needed for the week/night. I enjoy all aspects of it, too... so maybe I'm just weird that way.

what

This was the big 'unforseen' problem with giving the better healing classes (Priests and Druids) viable DPS specs. Now there are more feral druids, elemental shamans and shadow priests than you can shake a stick at and you're left with only the people that really WANT to heal. The ones that go farming solo with Holy/Resto spec or find friends to help them. This change has unveiled a lot of discontent for their old job of healing. People who were always resto specced, from MC to Naxx are now feral. And they intend to stay that way because NOT-healing is just so much fun.

I played a warlock for a long time, raiding through naxx on an alliance char and AQ40 on horde.

For TBC, I decided to reroll with a small group of friends as paladin thinking it would be cool to be a LOLCRIT fairy and hit things with a big hammer but by level 50 I had switched to holy spec and started main healing instances.

Becoming a healer actually made me realize that a lot of people really take full health bars for granted and don't ever really stop to analyze their health and how much damage they are taking until they're dead. It also made me realize that healing isn't pop-the-weasel by clicking heal on whoever happens to be low, but rather more an art concentrated around deciding whose survival ultimately benefits the current encounter the most and then among those, trying to predict how I can heal without spamming and wasting mana.

Adding to the complexity of the situation is that I have to also be aware of my own health and threat generation which I've found the hardest to master since in keeping after other people I forget that I myself am a part of the encounter and there's a big, pissed elite trucking my way.

I was pretty cocky as a warlock, and I used to always bitch that healers need to l2play because "there are only two buttons to press" but its been a humbling (and retarded fun) wearing the other shoes.

Quite the opinion. I for one won't level another character in this game that can't heal. I am planning on full resto for my shaman when he hits 70. That being said I have been a mage since release. I realize that some may not like healing. However, I love healing instances so far with my shaman. I don't expect that to change later.

I switched from a raiding priest to a raiding hunter, but every class is crowded to some extent in Goon Squad, and I remained in the same close-knit group of people. I sit out more often when it comes to Kara, but I enjoy it a bit more. I'll get my priest up eventually I think, but hunters fit my personality better.

I love healing 5 mans, but got burnt out in the red scare of MC and just health bar watching in general.