I've recently hit a patch of Burnout within WoW, now this isn't the normal type where you just don't want to play the game, it's more of a class burnout. I play a warrior, and I've done both the roles from Main Tanking, up to being around 3rd DPS wise. I've just hit the line where I actually don't want to do either of those two roles anymore.

I have decided to make a healer, in this case a paladin, and start leveling it up to get a feel, pre-TBC. But my question to you all is how do I get back into the feel of my lost class? All that gear is wasted really if I never go back, right now I feel as if I won't.

Also, to edit in.

Have any of you ever suffered a class related Burnout?
What did you do to cope?
Did it affect your raiding?
Did you change class ultimately?

my first 60 was a mage.. wasn't my play style
2nd was the rogue, which i consider my main. 125+ days played. got tired of the pigeon hole blizz designed for me.

been happy w/ the warrior so far.

as far as all that "wasted time" with the gear. well, that's pretty much it, if you chose to view it that way. I was never a loot happy person, and only took it when it couldn't benefit another more than myself. I played the game to see new things, and the gear was a nice little perk (raided AQ and Naxx for months, and the only gears i have to show i've even been in the zone are the aq rep ring, and 2/5 T2.5, no naxx gear, even though i had plenty of DKP to get a few upgrades).

it kinda sucks to give it up, especially if you're going from alliance to horde, where a lot of the stuff is hard to even transfer over, but i think if you enjoy playing the game, and the new class, then the lost time is OK.

I stopped playing WoW all together. After several months when I returned, I found that my new guild rank was "Ebayed" and a slew of tells asking how much I 'paid' for my account. Some people still think I ebayed, make me laugh that even being in vent, telling them about things we did they persist.

I like my priest quite a bit, I like the toon, put lots of time into it, and actually enjoy healing playing a healer. At some point I just lost interest, was tired of pretty much every in game aspect. Now even the crazy boring farming, herbing, 5 mans, raids all seem way better. It took a ... 5? 6? month break before i could tolerate, play, then enjoy WoW.

Decide if you're tierd of the game or class. Sounds like you may just need to reroll and well, with xpac it seems like a perfect time to do it.

A lot of people need to take breaks, especially healers. Half our guild has been with us since day 1 (dec 04), but only 1-2 people have done that without a couple weeks here and there. We have one priest who goes like 2 months on, 1 month off. If you push that extra week in, instead of taking a break, it could literally be the diff from playing another year, to quitting forever. Everyone quits eventually, so just be prepared for that.

As I've told my own guild one of the worst parts of being in a guild is seeing some really cool people quit the game or leave the guild. Of course, thats also what makes guilds so great - cause you've had that time to spend with those people. Sometimes your most hardcore just have to move on, and recruiting is the only solution.

If you're burning out yourself, take 2 weeks off.

I'm pretty certain I still like the game, it's just the same thing in raids is getting a bit much, although I realise I will eventually hit that point with the healer, right now I am enjoying the healing role alot more than I did with the warrior role (back in the earlier levels of the warrior), so this might be a step in the right direction.

The suggestions for taking a week off the game entirely might work too, I guess. Not really done that for a good long while.

Once you take the time off you'll realize very quickly if you need to spend more time IRL (quit), or just were sick of 24/7 in naxx. Naxx progression push is pretty intense, and sometimes you need a breather before going again.

Naxx? I wish.

I've only done BWL -> AQ40 (And that was only Sart)

Naxx interests me alot, and if I could get a slot in a Naxx that might make me want to tank again.

I am not so sure you would like Naxx, from my rather limited experience with it (I simply stopped raiding once I discovered what it required out of my RL). The loot is great and the bosses are very well designed as a general rule, but the amount of hardocre involved was waaay too much for my liking. Encounters like 4H can destroy guilds, and I know a few that have exploded this way.

Its wasted anyway. If you've burned out on your class but want to play another, you've picked the perfect time to do it. Unless you're in full T3 you'll be replacing most if not all of your equipment in the levelling process for TBC. Roll that paladin and don't look back.

I think one of the biggest things that has kept me interested in my Rogue is having a Priest alt. I've raided with both chars at once in 2 separate guilds, and enjoyed it, but it always came back to going to my Rogue felt more natural and more enjoyable, it was what I preferred. Being able to experience raiding on another character, and I still do 20mans on my Priest, allowed me to get a break from the "Make Health Bar go Down" play style, to the "Make Health Bar go Up" play style. It keeps the game interesting, and allows me to really enjoy my time as a rogue, because I get the option whenever I want to play a Priest for a while.

Although minorly unrelated to the topic, one thing that I dread seeing from an applicant is that "WoW is my life" or anything similarly hardcore about how they play WoW for 90% of their waking hours. These are the people that in my opinion, are more likely to see that burn out and either re-roll a character, meaning the guild has to re-gear a player, or will quit WoW altogether. The best way for anyone to stay interested in WoW, especially with the time consumption required to learn Naxxramas, is for that person to have active interests outside of WoW, something that keeps them away from the game, but at the end of the day, when they sit down and relax, they still WANT to play WoW.

I was experiencing this very issue myself about 3 weeks ago. I was to a point where I didn't want to play my main (a priest) or even my other 60 alt (a mage, although non raiding.. I have a priest :( ). I created a druid to muck around with a few friends (out of guild, so I couldn't be hassled to go heal a raid), but had got to the stage where I wasn't at all concerned with playing, in fact I believe I would have quit, even with all the excitement of the expansion pack.

The guild I was in was raiding 5 nights a week, we were up to Fankriss (the guild formed 8 months after release and thus we were a little behind where we could have been). I say 'was' for a good reason. The powers that were in my former guild decided that PVE was a good option for the guild and without discussion stated that we were all transfering. Being the stubborn person I am, I didn't like being told what I should do, so I, along with a third of the guild remained on our current server. As such, we no longer raid 5 days a week - its absolute bliss after a year and a half of devoting my spare time to raiding.

Having this forced break has definately changed my perspective of the game, and realigned my priorties - it's just a game afterall. I'm making sure I don't skip stuff for the game, so when I do play, it's fun again.

So my suggestion, take a break - even if for a few weeks, or do as you are doing, go back and discover the joys of starting a baby character.