Back in the saddle

.
Soon, anyway. Soon.

With the paladin at level 60 and spec'ed for protection, I figured that I would try a few instance runs to see how efficient he was at powerleveling alts as compared to the enhancement shaman. Having read about multiboxed hunter groups on the Dual Box forums, I figured I'd try a group of three hunters and a druid. Why the druid? Partly for the sake of just having a druid, partly because his thorns would add to the damage that the paladin could do to a crowd of mobs. The first instance that horde characters can run is Ragefire Chasm, which requires a minimum level of eight to enter. So off I went to level my new characters to eight.

The druid was mildly interesting to level and got to eight pretty quickly. How much I liked or disliked the class was not supposed to be an issue-- he would really just be a support class for me. But I started to think that a group of four hunters might be preferable. Ah well, I could cross that bridge once I got to it. Now on to the hunters...

Leveling the hunters was a bit more fun but just as uneventful. Having gotten the third one to level eight, I was struck by the desire to get him to level ten to see what it would be like to have a pet. So I ground out the next two levels, which felt awfully tedious and slightly frustrating. The hunter is a ranged class, and until I had a pet, my attack pattern was to try and dump as much damage onto a mob as I could before it got to within melee range, and pray that I didn't get any adds. Finally, my little hunter was level ten. I did the quests and ran out and tamed my first pet.

Wow.

I don't know if there is as big a change in how much fun a class is, as there is with the hunter class after you get your first pet. Teach the pet the Growl skill, and you are now free to stand back and wreak havoc on mobs while they try to whittle down your pet's health. It's no wonder this is considered the easiest class to level. It was also a whole lot of fun, because it was such a difference from the rogue and shaman that I'd leveled to 70.

So I logged in the first hunter, slogged through the tedium of levels 9 and 10, got my pet, and went about leveling her to 12. Logged in the second hunter and did the same, trying a different pet. Came back to the third hunter and about three weeks later, he is level 60. The druid? Erm... I think I deleted him.

Anyway...

Now that the hunter is 60, I'm going to try to multibox him with the regular crew. The paladin will remain protection spec'ed, but the priest (whom I'd spec'ed to shadow in anticipation of having the shaman provide heals) will spec holy and be the group's healer. The hunter, mage, and warlock will provide DPS. No more powerleveling with the 70 shaman! And with my limited experience with all but the hunter, the early going in Hellfire Ramparts is certain to be a painful experience at the start, but I'm sure that before long I'll have that instance cleared and be getting ready for the Blood Furnace.

Unless I decide to level those other hunters...