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In case you don't know, I've become a huge fan of World of Warcraft.  Started playing in January when I got bored of all of my existing games.  Since I've always liked Blizzard's products (most anyway), I figured it was time to get on the bandwagon, albeit probably 4 years too late.  That said, I have to say the game is really fun to play and even if I get frustrated occasionally, I still have tons of fun with it.

At the moment, I play exclusively on the PvP server Ner'zhul as part of the Horde faction.  I am part of the guild "Deaths Right Hand," which consists of three players and about 12 characters.  I have six characters (actually seven, but I'm probably going to get rid of one):

• Nrukyln - Tauren Hunter
• Drahkos - Undead Mage
• Grokhphire - Orc Shaman
• Brahnshaw - Tauren Druid
• Ayumitoda - Blood Elf Priest
• Wrothgrod - Orc Warrior

Unfortunately, my highest level character is only at 38 at the moment (my hunter).  I do have alt-itis, but I don't mind because I wanted to find out the right character to play.  In reality, my character choice depends on my mood.  For solo'ing, I prefer playing the hunter and shaman.  By far, the hunter has been the easiest to solo and even grind.  I have as his professions skinning and leatherworking, so grinding for XP and materials make a ton of sense and works out well.  Also, his pet (a fell swoop I call descriptively "Bird") has been the life saver.  Yes, I've gone the traditional route of having him specialize in Beast Mastery, but it works out pretty well.

Also, I've enjoyed the shaman.  I've read that the shaman is (was) the Horde's answer to the paladin.  Essentially, it's a more range and magically offensive combat oriented warrior with lesser armor and slightly less melee weapon skills.  My shaman thus far has gone the enhancement route, which apparently is the traditional solo'ing thing until you hit the upper levels.  I have another troll shaman, but I didn't care for her and ended up dropping her altogether.  Been too lazy to delete her, but essentially I found the initial bonuses for orcs a little better suited for the shaman than the troll. 

Either way, the reason why I ended up with a shaman was that I was trying to find a good healer and felt that the druid and priest were either too confusing or too weak.  So after solo'ing with the shaman a bit and leveling him up fast, I ended up liking him far better than the druid and priest.  Second, it seems that most people end up taking the paladin.  According to one statistic, about 1/3rd of the characters out there are paladins.  My guild has three paladins, so why bring another into the mix?  Truthfully, I probably won't take a paladin ever just for these reasons.

Going back to the druid character, originally I had focused a lot more effort on him.  He was going to be my third character in development.  However, I found that his inability to use magic while in his different forms to be confusing.  When we assaulted Deatholme in the Ghostlands, I found it far easier to have him tank as a bear (especially since he's spec'd in Feral Combat) rather than be a healer.  Now, that we have a new druid in our guild, I'll probably put even less emphasis on him to avoid redundancy in the group.  However, he was fun to use.  Previously, I had him team with our only rogue in the group, after I felt the priest-rogue combo wasn't very good.  Druid-Rogue is a nice combo because they can compliment each other, especially with both being able to use stealth at a certain level.  However, I'll probably hold off for a while with him and see how the other druid does.

Next we come to my priest.  Oh man, even if people tell me the priest's designs were intentional, I still think that they should've been given better armor.  But essentially my opinion is that the priests are the worst characters in the game.  For solo'ing without question.  I already re-spec'd my priest after realizing that splitting between holy and discipline were clear mistakes.  Their mana goes down immensely fast, they can only wear cloth armor and you have to equip a wand for them to have any effect.  Also, I learned that the shadow priest is the only way to go at lower levels.  Since I didn't have a lot of options for my group originally, I kinda put my priest on the sidelines.  The only reason I'm keeping her is because she has jewelrycrafting as a skill.  If we can manage to get three people simultaneously playing, I might try having her go with that group just to have people to level up with.  I think she needs at least two other people to play with, definitely one person who can tank since she'll go down pretty hard otherwise.

My mage was fun to run initially.  I had him run with my friend's warlock for a bit.  The team was decent because we could do a lot of damage and the warlock's Void Walker could absorb the damage.  But having two power magic users without a lot of armor, HP and healing in between can be tough.  I should've taken a mage from the start because the mage is far easier to play than the hunter (which was my first).  Just shoot and kill.  However, I just wish we had either a part time healer and/or part time tank (or combo) to back these two up in heavy situations.  I really don't want to solo the character.  I suppose though if we can get more people in the guild/group, I'll take him out more.

Lastly, we have my warrior character.  Good in your face type.  He's focused on fury as the solo advocates advise.  He's my only character (besides the troll shaman) to not have a mount since he's below level 20.  I'm having him play with my friend's druid.  The timing worked out well because I was finishing up Brinn and about to move him to Silvermoon and start his run out there.  Now, that my friend's druid has joined our guild, I have someone to partner with.  I think the team has worked out well thus far because my guy is a little higher level at this point and can absorb more punishment.  However, we can do the majority of the quests in Ghostlands with the little extra power boost.

I think when you run warriors, mages and priests, you really need another person playing alongside with you.  It definitely is more fun.  But not having something like healing, HP, armor or a ranged attack can hurt.  It's probably my inexperience where I'm failing in the solo department, but I can definitely feel the difference in play.

Yeah, having six different characters is a lot of micro-management and time consumption.  I don't mind really because I just want to play the game and experience it from different points of view.  I don't think I enjoy solo'ing as much as playing with other people.  Solo'ing is fine if you're doing an activity like grinding.  But on quests or when you start hitting the mid-levels and encountering allies/PvP settings, it's just so much better having that 2nd person watch your back.

How would I describe my style of playing?  At this moment, it really depends on the character I use.  The hunter idealistically fits me the best because I'm a sneaky person.  So I like pulling monsters one-by-one from a distance and then letting my pet do all the work.  The great thing about that is that I can also scout the next opponent.  Having the little "radar" tracking ability of the hunter is one of the best things in the world.  In my opinion, no group should be without a hunter just for that reason.

The other way I would describe my style of playing is more of the utility guy.  That is, I fill in the role that is needed in that group.  That's why I have alt-itis.  I don't mind.  As someone still learning the game and all the different areas, I like playing the follower and having my guys serve as the compliment to the rest of the party.  Yeah, I know that the goal generally is to hit 80 ASAP so you can "really start playing the game" but I don't have that 4+ years of XP that more mature players do and prefer just learning things step by step.  I don't obsess over any single character and view them all as tools to better help the rest of the team at that moment.  Of course, I do have ambitions to help level up my own characters, but I'll do that when it makes sense.

I find the more intriguing aspects these days in terms of finding good combinations of characters and how they play off each other.  For instance, I moved away from the mage-warlock combo to the hunter-warlock combo.  I like the idea because it's almost like having four characters in the group.  Not only that, the way I have my pet set up, he can be the aggro-grabbing mini tank while my friend's succubus does the higher damage.  Also, since my hunter has more HP (as does Bird) and better armor, it plays better I think than the mage-warlock combo thus far.  If I remember to set traps at the right spots and moments, my guy can still AoE or snare people.

The rogue-druid combo was fun, but as I mentioned, I don't want to have a redundant character in the party.  So if my friend decides to start his rogue again and if my other friend employs his druid, I might move back to my priest until that party reaches a higher level (either matching my shaman or my mage).  I do want to play my friend's newer paladin with my shaman.  Since there is a bit of level disparity there, I might take my priest with that paladin, especially if the other druid comes along.  However, I am very interested to see how a shaman-paladin team fairs since both are hybrids that play well solo.  You would get the ranged pulling ability of the shaman with the better tanking ability of the paladin.  But both can heal and buff so there's some nice efficiency there.  If you add a druid to that particular mix, it might be a really fun team to play.

Outside of mixing and matching my characters, my other main goal in the game is to get at least one guy to a reasonably high level.  I've picked my hunter, followed by my shaman as the two for the job.  My mage would be the third but I really want to have three people in that group if I pick him up again.

Anyway, just for fun I'm trying to link my hunter to this page.

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