Why you should make other characters
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Why you should make other characters
by Preechr Wed Dec 07, 2016 4:51 am
Many people that are new to the game seem to feel like making another toon (an alt) would be a distraction from leveling up their main character, so they just never do it. You will probably never be "done" building your main, so I would like to give you some reasons it might be wise to go ahead and spend a couple of hours setting up a couple of alts sooner rather than later.
It takes about an hour to get a new toon up to level 12, which is really as far as you have to go. The reason this is a good stopping place is that is when you can take the quest that grants you the power of invoking. Knox gives this quest, like almost all others at this low level, and he will send you to a nice lady at the nearby campfire. After talking to her, you can now invoke on that toon. Feel free to stop now and spend an hour building up the next alt.
Now, when you invoke on your main toon, take an extra minute or two and log into your alts and invoke with them as well. Since you aren't playing them all the time, the little bit of experience they get for invoking is always within the bonus experience you get each day, and this adds up! Within a couple of months, all of my alts got from level 12 to level 60 just by praying. I was paying for VIP that whole time, so your mileage may vary, but when the day comes that I want to be a Paladin, it's nice to know that all I will have to do is get started on the Elemental Evil, Sharandar and Maze Engine campaigns and I'll be headed right to level 70 in short order.
That being said, I know some would say there is great benefit to be had in learning your class by leveling your toons all the way through all of the content. Ok, so here are some other reasons you should have alts:
1. Storage space
Yes, they may not have a lot to offer in this regard, but free space is free space, right?
2. Salvage
There is a limit to how much Rough Astral Diamonds you can refine in a day per toon, so if you have accumulated more than that amount on your main character, you can send the rest to your alts to salvage. By the way, there is a method by which you can transfer AD between your toons, if you have not already heard of this. If you want to know more, ask in the comments below.
3. Refinement Items
By invoking every day, your alts will amass a ton of refinement items that will be VERY helpful when you someday decide to play one of them. Almost all of these stones and marks will be bound to character (BtC) but when the day comes and you decide to get that Trickster the last few steps to 70 and put some Artifact Equipment on her, you will have a stockpile of refinement items to get started with.
4. Yes, even Coalescent Wards...
If you are already invoking, you already know that the first and last times you do this each cycle awards you Celestial Coins, of which each toon can only have up to 14 at a time. Our recommendation is that you trade these for Coffers of Celestial Enchantments in the Vault of Piety, as these seem to have a mathematical advantage over the other choices when it comes to the chance at receiving a Coalescent Ward as a reward. These are by far the most valuable thing you can get from invoking, and having more alts gives you more chances to get more of these fairly rare prizes.
Ok, so maybe now you are convinced that you should start all of the alts you can, but you still have no idea what class to pick... Yes, that can be a tough decision, but maybe it will make you feel better to know there is never a right answer
There is a possibility that you can figure this out though... Hopefully, you love playing the character you have now. For example, my main is a Divine Cleric, Annointed Champion, and I love playing him. At first there were a few things... maybe many things... that annoyed me, however, but in time I have learned to play him well and I am very proud of him. Let me assure you though, if you have never played a DC, it definitely takes some getting used to. That little "slide" you see them do? Yeah, that can get you into as much trouble as it was meant to get them out of. My main skills all seem to have long animations that either root him in a red spot or cancel if I move... The list goes on... I learned how to turn his flaws into a functional playstyle, though, and now he is very fun to play though even the hardest dungeons.
When I decided to build up an alt as a secondary character, I thought it might be fun to actually do some DPS for a change, though. I looked at the different classes and decided on the Hunter Ranger because in the Trapper line, the key to high DPS is to constantly change betwen using your bow from a distance and getting up in someone's face with knives or axes. Believe it or not, this was very close to how I had learned to effectively play my Cleric, so I loved playing the HR as much as I loved to play my DC.
In short, figure out what it is you love about playing your main, and ask around or experiment with the other classes to see which one might give you that same feeling when in battle.
Now, that brings up the second consideration you will consider while making this decision: DPS, Support or Tank? All classes can effectively handle any of these roles to some degree, though public dungeons will only let OPs and GFs take the tank role and DCs are the only official healer class. If you want to build a Ranger off-tank for use in private que runs, knock yourself out! It can be done. If you want a Scourge Warlock that buffs your team and debuffs the bad guys rather than doing amazing DPS, go right ahead. If you look closely, all classes have feats and powers that can make them very versatile. Maybe, however, at the end of the day, the only thing your heart desires is being at the top of the damage dealt chart. No worries. No group can buff, heal and tank Orcus to death.
The best DPS class seems to change with each patch. You may know every thing there is to know about your current DPS toon and you may be rocking God-like numbers in every dungeon you run with your ultimate build... but what if you could get more? Maybe there is a combination of feats on the Control Wizard nobody ever thought of, and you could discover a build that blows everything in the game away. Ok, maybe not, but every dungeon group works better if the individuals play as a team, and the only way to truly know how another class could be helping you up your DPS game is to build one yourself. Get to know the support classes and see what they have to offer. There are tons of buffs available to you from other classes, and there are also debuffs, DoTs and effects that can cancel each other out. The more you know about what other classes bring to the table, the more your group can optimize their powers and skills to bring bosses down quicker. Support classes exist to help you make things bleed better, and those that support would rarely get insulted if you asked them to bring a certain skill into a certain fight.
Lastly, the class sigil artifacts you get by completing the level 60 quest "Vault of the Nine" will be made available to every alt you have, and some of them are the best artifacts in the game. My Hunter Ranger has the class sigils for her class as well as those from my Trickster and my Wizard, and my Guardian Fighter uses the Cleric sigil as primary. As I said above, since I made all my alts very early on and invoked with them every day, you could say all I had to do to get these valuable artifacts was to pray for them
If you have spaces for alts and have been waiting to create them someday, or decided you will never want one, I hope this has maybe swayed your opinion just a little.
Have Fun!
It takes about an hour to get a new toon up to level 12, which is really as far as you have to go. The reason this is a good stopping place is that is when you can take the quest that grants you the power of invoking. Knox gives this quest, like almost all others at this low level, and he will send you to a nice lady at the nearby campfire. After talking to her, you can now invoke on that toon. Feel free to stop now and spend an hour building up the next alt.
Now, when you invoke on your main toon, take an extra minute or two and log into your alts and invoke with them as well. Since you aren't playing them all the time, the little bit of experience they get for invoking is always within the bonus experience you get each day, and this adds up! Within a couple of months, all of my alts got from level 12 to level 60 just by praying. I was paying for VIP that whole time, so your mileage may vary, but when the day comes that I want to be a Paladin, it's nice to know that all I will have to do is get started on the Elemental Evil, Sharandar and Maze Engine campaigns and I'll be headed right to level 70 in short order.
That being said, I know some would say there is great benefit to be had in learning your class by leveling your toons all the way through all of the content. Ok, so here are some other reasons you should have alts:
1. Storage space
Yes, they may not have a lot to offer in this regard, but free space is free space, right?
2. Salvage
There is a limit to how much Rough Astral Diamonds you can refine in a day per toon, so if you have accumulated more than that amount on your main character, you can send the rest to your alts to salvage. By the way, there is a method by which you can transfer AD between your toons, if you have not already heard of this. If you want to know more, ask in the comments below.
3. Refinement Items
By invoking every day, your alts will amass a ton of refinement items that will be VERY helpful when you someday decide to play one of them. Almost all of these stones and marks will be bound to character (BtC) but when the day comes and you decide to get that Trickster the last few steps to 70 and put some Artifact Equipment on her, you will have a stockpile of refinement items to get started with.
4. Yes, even Coalescent Wards...
If you are already invoking, you already know that the first and last times you do this each cycle awards you Celestial Coins, of which each toon can only have up to 14 at a time. Our recommendation is that you trade these for Coffers of Celestial Enchantments in the Vault of Piety, as these seem to have a mathematical advantage over the other choices when it comes to the chance at receiving a Coalescent Ward as a reward. These are by far the most valuable thing you can get from invoking, and having more alts gives you more chances to get more of these fairly rare prizes.
Ok, so maybe now you are convinced that you should start all of the alts you can, but you still have no idea what class to pick... Yes, that can be a tough decision, but maybe it will make you feel better to know there is never a right answer
There is a possibility that you can figure this out though... Hopefully, you love playing the character you have now. For example, my main is a Divine Cleric, Annointed Champion, and I love playing him. At first there were a few things... maybe many things... that annoyed me, however, but in time I have learned to play him well and I am very proud of him. Let me assure you though, if you have never played a DC, it definitely takes some getting used to. That little "slide" you see them do? Yeah, that can get you into as much trouble as it was meant to get them out of. My main skills all seem to have long animations that either root him in a red spot or cancel if I move... The list goes on... I learned how to turn his flaws into a functional playstyle, though, and now he is very fun to play though even the hardest dungeons.
When I decided to build up an alt as a secondary character, I thought it might be fun to actually do some DPS for a change, though. I looked at the different classes and decided on the Hunter Ranger because in the Trapper line, the key to high DPS is to constantly change betwen using your bow from a distance and getting up in someone's face with knives or axes. Believe it or not, this was very close to how I had learned to effectively play my Cleric, so I loved playing the HR as much as I loved to play my DC.
In short, figure out what it is you love about playing your main, and ask around or experiment with the other classes to see which one might give you that same feeling when in battle.
Now, that brings up the second consideration you will consider while making this decision: DPS, Support or Tank? All classes can effectively handle any of these roles to some degree, though public dungeons will only let OPs and GFs take the tank role and DCs are the only official healer class. If you want to build a Ranger off-tank for use in private que runs, knock yourself out! It can be done. If you want a Scourge Warlock that buffs your team and debuffs the bad guys rather than doing amazing DPS, go right ahead. If you look closely, all classes have feats and powers that can make them very versatile. Maybe, however, at the end of the day, the only thing your heart desires is being at the top of the damage dealt chart. No worries. No group can buff, heal and tank Orcus to death.
The best DPS class seems to change with each patch. You may know every thing there is to know about your current DPS toon and you may be rocking God-like numbers in every dungeon you run with your ultimate build... but what if you could get more? Maybe there is a combination of feats on the Control Wizard nobody ever thought of, and you could discover a build that blows everything in the game away. Ok, maybe not, but every dungeon group works better if the individuals play as a team, and the only way to truly know how another class could be helping you up your DPS game is to build one yourself. Get to know the support classes and see what they have to offer. There are tons of buffs available to you from other classes, and there are also debuffs, DoTs and effects that can cancel each other out. The more you know about what other classes bring to the table, the more your group can optimize their powers and skills to bring bosses down quicker. Support classes exist to help you make things bleed better, and those that support would rarely get insulted if you asked them to bring a certain skill into a certain fight.
Lastly, the class sigil artifacts you get by completing the level 60 quest "Vault of the Nine" will be made available to every alt you have, and some of them are the best artifacts in the game. My Hunter Ranger has the class sigils for her class as well as those from my Trickster and my Wizard, and my Guardian Fighter uses the Cleric sigil as primary. As I said above, since I made all my alts very early on and invoked with them every day, you could say all I had to do to get these valuable artifacts was to pray for them
If you have spaces for alts and have been waiting to create them someday, or decided you will never want one, I hope this has maybe swayed your opinion just a little.
Have Fun!
Preechr- Posts : 5
Join date : 2016-11-24
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