Homebrew characters in the World of Warcraft.

by WyldKard on July 9, 2007

People occasionally ask me what class in World of (WoW) I play, but the focus of my WoW-time has changed dramatically over the years. To give one an idea of my more popular characters, however, I’ve compiled a quick list of toons I’ve played since 2004 that, at one time or another, were destined for end-game. Sadly, most never made it.

  • Tiara Thorin – My second character post-beta (first for Alliance), Tiara was a Rogue that reached the 40s, and was modeled after one of my beta characters. Her first name is borrowed from a character I developed for Starshield, while her surname hints at lineage from William Thorin, a thief character I developed many years ago. She spent most of her time as an assassination build, and before retirement became a stun-lock rogue. She was founder and leader of the Shadow Cartel, and would not have been relegated to “alt” status were it not for the fact that much of my WoW-time was spent playing in groups, where we were in dire need for classes that were not DPS-centric. (Not to mention, groups had no idea how to party with a stun-lock rogue.) Tiara, like most of the following characters, was rolled with a degree of RP in mind, but in most cases, this aspect of the character rarely materialized.
  • Ruprecht Thunderpants – With his black lion companion Knecht, Ruprecht the Hunter was my first “true” alt, and was started in an effort to keep Tiara from leveling faster than her friends. Well before Big Red Kitty came along, Ruprecht was a die-hard Beastmastery Hunter who lectured on the proper use and flexibility of his Hunter brethren. Fact is, proper pulling techniques and crowd control were utilized by some Hunters since the end of WoW’s beta, even though few groups would let Hunters do anything but DPS. After Tiara was retired, Ruprecht’s leveling suffered significant setbacks while I focused on other characters, but by the time I came back to him, he quickly earned my praise.
  • Leonhardt – After witnessing an offensive, casting Druid in Gnomeregan, and knowing that my group could use a healer, Leonhardt was rolled and based loosely on a schizophrenic character I developed for the Starshield project years earlier. What better class to illustrate a personality disorder than a Druid? As this was back before the Feral spec was viable (when cat form had no DPS to speak of), Leonhardt was leveled to 60 under a painfully slow-leveling hybrid spec, and later converted to Feral once it became a true DPS variant. As with Ruprecht, I forged new territory with Leonhardt, using the class in a manner most of its players refused to. Given gearing pre-BC, Leonhardt’s DPS was significant, but non-World-PvP was difficult. The character was only briefly revisited when I returned to WoW post-BC. My love for the Druid class was built around its dynamism in group settings, where a Feral spec meant adjusting to how a scenario plays out, but when I returned to WoW, everyone and their mother was playing a Feral Druid. Nonetheless, Leonhardt was arguably my most enjoyable character to play, and nothing compares to my multi-form fight in Stratholme, where Leonhardt was forced to solo the last fraction of the Baron’s life. Before he was retired, Leonhardt was founder of the Pandaren Foreign Legion.
  • Drognan Dreamweaver – My first post-beta character was a Shaman, and he was ultimately retired when I moved to a PvP server to play Alliance. When the PvP-RP servers opened, I re-rolled my Shammy and specced Enhancement until 60, when I switched to Elemental for PvP goodness. This was back when Enhancement and Elemental were both powerful builds, when one could dish out unbelievable damage using spells, and then relying on pre-nerfed kamikaze Windfury procs before respawning and repeating the dishing out of pain. When Enhancement was nerfed, Drognan became an Elemental master, retiring only when I left WoW. He has since been mostly untouched, though respecced to Restoration, which coincidentally mirrors his aging self from a young warrior, to wise sage. As the character I PvP’d with the most, Drognan was unbelievably fun as an Elemental battle-mage, but with only his current spec seemingly viable, he likely won’t be revisited anytime soon. Before retirement, Drognan (whose name is borrowed from a character in another creative project of mine), was founder of the Deadhorn Tribe.
  • Ayeleya – Though I dabbled around with various classes when I returned to WoW post-BC, Ayeleya became my main character. As a Protection-specced Blood Elf Paladin, she was my first serious foray into tanking, and was quite a blast to play using the crazy AoE grinding technique. Unfortunately, Paladins of this build are only really good for tanking, and give a group marginal benefits when playing any other role. Currently in her 50s, she’s on-hold for the time being.
  • Krimshaw – The spiritual successor of Ruprecht, Krimshaw was rolled because I so missed the Hunter class, and likely would have come to be earlier if I could have mustered the courage to re-level a Hunter and deal with the enormous overpopulation of the class sooner. While I intended (and started) to level Krimshaw as a Beast Master, like Feral Druids, everyone and their mother is choosing this spec nowadays. Thus, I’ve since become intrigued with the changes to the Survival tree, and am going with this spec for the time being because of the additional flexibility (and complexity) it offers.

Interestingly, if one were to draw some sort of conclusion about the characters I lean towards (especially factoring in some other alts and my beta characters), it’s easy to see that I’m a fan of the hybrid classes. Perhaps more accurately, I’m drawn to resilient survivors that are not necessarily straightforward to play, and require some learning to play well. Of the DPS classes I’ve played, both the Druid and Rogue are appealing because of their ability to escape from, and stealth around, enemies. The lack of adaptability pushed me away from the latter class, however.

I’ll have to factor in some of these play-styles when Warhammer comes around. Still, at the moment, the Squig Herder still sounds promising,

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