Eh, I don't think I am an overly mathematical or know-it-all type, but I am on occasion fascinated when reading theorycraft threads and the like (though I pretty much never participate in them). I've played a mage since closed beta because I enjoy the big numbers, but I also enjoy the general utility. It makes me feel fairly useful in raids to assist in raid preparation (buffs, food/water) and survival (decurses, dampen/amplify). Then again, there are times when I wonder if I didn't pick the right class or if my playstyle needs some fine-tuning -- for a damage class, I don't really match up well with a lot of the other mages in my guild. I'm routinely outclassed, despite having arguably some of the best gear of any mage in the guild at this point.

On a separate note, I've noticed a lot of mages (at least most I have played with on my server) can be notoriously self-absorbed, selfish and generally unhelpful (and occasionally really big jerks with big mouths), which seems pretty odd for a class featuring the ability to assist others that it does. I guess it sort of bothers me, since I try to be helpful whenever I can.

Also, like Tehax, I like pretty things and will sometimes probably choose aesthetics over functionality. Fortunately all of the mage sets so far have been very neat looking so I haven't had any problem, but as of right now I really don't like the look of Enigma.

I rolled a priest just because they were either nonexsistant in OB or just suck. I could easily be good at any class but being responsible for the survival of a half dozen other people in PVP or PVE is kinda fun. Also, ransoming players lives or chatting with alliance is the added bonus.

People who roll druids are fucking badasses. That's all there is too it.

Interesting note: How many of you have come across rogue guild leaders.

Personally I never have. In my experience it's either been priests or tanks, and I've heard of one warlock. Never heard of a pally/hunter/rogue/mage/druid (alliance).

forgot druids :(

The best tanks are twitchy, theorycraft, min-maxer elitist know-it-alls who jump around a lot.

Least that's what I tell myself when I'm jumping around in between telling everyone what to do.

Fixed.

I personally rolled a Warrior because, frankly, I wanted to prove to myself that tanking isn't hard and that most Warriors just suck. I'm contemplating rolling a Priest for the same reason. I'm unsure where this would classify me, though.

I am a hardcore min/maxer and I strive for absolute perfection. Whenever we tackle an encounter, the first thing I start asking myself is "how can I make this encounter even more efficient".

The first class I actually noticed the common personality thing with was my guilds warlocks. Invariably they were highly sarcastic when they did speak (relative to the only moderately sarcastic 99% remainder) but generally kept to themselves.

I've played a lot of classes to 60, but the one I always come back to is my mage. I'd say I'm definitely the controlling sort (no one was happier about the little raid marker icons than me I don't think), and most of my alts, I rolled so that I had first hand experience with each class so I could know what sort of performance you could reasonably expect out of each class (well, and generally there's *something* about a class that makes it unique or enjoyable enough to level to 60). Also, I think mages have the rogue hoppers beat by a bit. If our raids sat still any longer than 3 minutes, not only were the mages jumping, they were generally AoEing the raid just as hard as they could (blastwave is worth 21 TP's alone just for the pretty lights). When I'm running around on the rooftops of org, everytime PoM cools down I'm tryin' to see how many hapless bystanders I can nail with a driveby flamestrike from above.

As far as women playing classes, I'd say my experience has been 50/50 for whether they're healers or not. My first guild (fairly small dungeon type), our husband/wife combo was priest/warrior respectively, and we had 2 female hunters. Next guild, we had 1 tank (who later rerolled as priest), 1 druid, 1 priest, 1 rogue, and 1 hunter (the priests sister).

That sure sounds familiar! (they do)

One of my roommates once spoke some very wise words while we were working on our Senior Design software project last year: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."* Optimizing stuff is a joy in itself, but sometimes pushing for it to happen now is not the right idea. Regrettably.



*Hoare's Maxim, I think?

THIS IS A LIE!

Has anybody ever known a member of the armed forces that played a caster class? Every single one I know plays a warrior or rogue.

lets see females... hmmm
2 druids
2 shamans
4 priests


i think i see a trend ;P

There is a Navy Corpsman out there somewhere I'm sure that is revising his RL role in WoW.

Of the 4 members of my guild I know are in the service we have 2 rogues and 2 warriors. Although one of the rogues is playing primarily on a priest now.

I played a Priest from release untill about 8 months in, but I did reroll after taking a break. I have a couple other service members in the new guild 1 Mage/Druid, 1 Warlock, 1 Pally, 1 Priest that quit. So they are out there just few and far between. 6 females in the guild 3 Priests, 1 Druid, 1 Mage, 1 Rogue.

Got one in our guild who play a hunter. Seems to still fit the acting-out hypothesis, though.

Also, in our guild, all of the always-knows-best alpha-males are warriors. This works out well for tanking intensive fights, where they can boss each other around, but it can be a serious pain when they apply their infinite self-confidence and their slightly-less-infinite knowlegde to bossing around the healer corps.

Speaking of class personality quirks, how many priests get apoplectic when people tell them to heal? I don't mind tossing heals to DPS classes at all-- I'm quite symapathetic, actually. But it's a part of a constant mental process in which I balance that desire with keeping the rest of the raid alive, and being interrupted in that process by a "Heal me!" makes my jaw go all clenchy.

We had a Priest. Guess what spec he was.

Thats EXACTLY how I view myself, and its pretty much my "stereotype" for the elite, endgame tank.

I made a Shaman because I like cows and saw plenty of happy Shaman walking around casting spells, but that was a long time ago.

Now I don't see as many Shaman :( and in a raid, I am a hardcore totem/heal bot min/max'er. Raiding as a Shaman is hardcore business, uh huh. Which is kind of ridiculous because.. while I do feel a bit guilty taking optimal healing gear I really need over other classes, I'd just piss myself off if I just always took +dmg/healing gear Shamans would normally take and make do. I was spec'd 30/0/21 and couldn't stand raiding like that. I have to have 1) an optimal healing set(s) 2) optimal elemental set, but never over a DPS class. I definitely hate when people die and maybe I could have prevented it. I don't jump because I know it's not worth it.

I always try to look at things objectively and irrational people make me throw up; especially when they start plain yelling at other people without thinking about the bigger picture. I could wipe for weeks, it wouldn't phase me so long as we were making the tiniest of progress. I actually don't get angry at all IRL unless it's something serious.

Outside of a raid though, I enjoy not giving a fuck and pvp'ing as resto or elemental, both are fine with me. Thank god I don't have to farm for gold because I'd just never do it (my bro is loaded from his professions :D) Too lazy to roll another class/alt. And I think it's great I'm not a raid leader or officer.

I'm also extremely (no lies) deadly in CS and DotA but have never bothered to play competitively.


Really wish I had a rogue though, I really feel like I'd make a good one able to mass slaughter everyone just like CS or Bounty Hunter in DotA! I know he's a cheesy hero, but he's so much fun none-the-less :p If only I could have invested as much time on it to get the gear as I did my Shaman.

In one of my previous guilds, we actually had a Marine who played a Holy/disc priest and hated shadow

As far as jumping around, I do it so much I don't even notice it now. So far i've only wiped the raid once, as I have a tendency to strafe back and forth and jump and jumped the cliff on ony, into the eggs. Also, the tunnel before Princess doubles nicely as a halfpipe for your bug mounts.

Edit: /wave Dias

We have a priest with a military background. He tries to sneak in some damage when we don't want him to :(

My guild is led by a rogue GM, and I play a rogue myself. I serve as rogue class leader and secondary raid leader, which leads me to...

For example, I can't imagine healing on Twin Emps and having to bark out orders, teleport/blizzard/bug explosion warnings, etc., at the same time. But from a DPS perspective, I can mash backstab, hit rupture when necessary, and have push-to-talk held down without losing focus.

Our guild falls into the generalized breakdown of female players -- a druid who rerolled from a shaman main, two priests, one hunter with a priest alt. We had a warlock, but she retired from the raid game and was notorious for underperforming for her gear despite being one of the nicest people in the guild.

p.s. hi renew~ twisting nether is on the same cluster as kalecgos for bgs!

Our guild leaders have been, in order:

Mage/Rogue split, before we really started to raid
Rogue (same one)
Druid
Rogue again
Druid again

Trading it around as needed by their relative availabilities.

Our raid leader has been pretty consistently our MT, but we've also had both the guild leaders (mage doesn't count) and both of our paladin officers run raids.