What do you do with your alts?

[Gestopft]

In Legion I had two per class at max level, but I've scaled it back to one per, and occasionally level some Allied Race toons up a bit. I have a bunch of 110s that are mostly there for old raids and the occasional time walking.

For my 'active' toons, I run at least one M+ key per week on every toon (though I didn't get them all this week due to X-mas and getting Word Quest event done on every toon for the 1k resources). Most of them don't have much in the way of essences, so I mostly use the M+ essences for main slots.

[Azerate]

Personally, I made some additional alts for mount farming, mainly Sha and Nalak at the moment, but also "future-proofing" for possible future mount farming needs. We have the Love Rocket event coming soon too, so all is good. At the moment I am at 48 characters, all 100+ (to be all 120 before Korrak's Revenge goes away, currently 45 of them are 120). I left 2 character slots open for the incoming allied races, hence why 48 not 50.

[Amariw]

M+ mostly, sometimes world quests or war campaign. I'm a dps main but i really enjoy healing medium keys with "healer check" affixes (bursting, grevious). They encourage using a wider variety of toolsets for healers then what other weeks do,and they also push you to output bigger numbers. It's fun.

Also on tank alts its fun to get instant queues.

[Syegfryed]

in this expansion just to do old content, farm mounts/transmogs

[Topornic]

Many at 120 are just left there to rot. The rest still stuck at 110, can't be bothered to get them up to speed right now as essence grind is too much to bear for me and also Shadowlands supposedly will make levelling a bit more exciting and quicker.

[Doffen]

Sensing a theme here.....

The Essence thing is a huge blunder on Blizz's part, it seems.

The blunder was Azerite Armor. Essences was a band aid for that. If we had essences from day 1, and more fleshed out, people wouldn't be as bothered, seeing this far into the expansion people would have been done farming them a long time ago.

That being said, the grind for essences is nowhere as bad as the artifact weapon, and grind in general is less in BfA than Legion. Somehow Legion was still much more popular despite that and more titanforging. Maybe the uninteresting content is the bigger issue? No mage tower, no artifact weapon transmog, no class mount, no class hall. For me that seem to be a motivational issue.

Just an example of power gain on an alt:
I got 1 day and 13 hours played on my paladin, 27 hours over 3 months. I do only WQ in Naz'jatar when its emissary. She is now at 65, got both minors done, 2 rank 3 essences and 1 rank 1, I farmed 1 hour of those 27 hours in mechagon so when 8.3 I can buy rank 3 on the last. She is 430, I do mythic+ 9-11s each week and pug heroic EP now and then. All that in 27 hours. I am more behind on gear than essences and Azerite, because thats the thing that takes most time between those "grinds", and that saying something. If people could think for themselves and just do the content they like instead of "waa waaa islands and WQs for 5 weeks until HoA level 60 waaa waa" the issue wouldn't be this bad.

But, I can see why people get a bit demotivated with both Azerite and Essences and as my guildie said it, he agreed with me with it not being so bad as people say, but that he also feel the same as other people that wants all the same essences as their main have. I think that mentality is what hurt people the most.

[Hubbl3]

I'm using mine for farming old mounts.

[Amariw]

The blunder was Azerite Armor. Essences was a band aid for that. If we had essences from day 1, and more fleshed out, people wouldn't be as bothered, seeing this far into the expansion people would have been done farming them a long time ago.

That being said, the grind for essences is nowhere as bad as the artifact weapon, and grind in general is less in BfA than Legion. Somehow Legion was still much more popular despite that and more titanforging. Maybe the uninteresting content is the bigger issue? No mage tower, no artifact weapon transmog, no class mount, no class hall. For me that seem to be a motivational issue.

Just an example of power gain on an alt:
I got 1 day and 13 hours played on my paladin, 27 hours over 3 months. I do only WQ in Naz'jatar when its emissary. She is now at 65, got both minors done, 2 rank 3 essences and 1 rank 1, I farmed 1 hour of those 27 hours in mechagon so when 8.3 I can buy rank 3 on the last. She is 430, I do mythic+ 9-11s each week and pug heroic EP now and then. All that in 27 hours. I am more behind on gear than essences and Azerite, because thats the thing that takes most time between those "grinds", and that saying something. If people could think for themselves and just do the content they like instead of "waa waaa islands and WQs for 5 weeks until HoA level 60 waaa waa" the issue wouldn't be this bad.

But, I can see why people get a bit demotivated with both Azerite and Essences and as my guildie said it, he agreed with me with it not being so bad as people say, but that he also feel the same as other people that wants all the same essences as their main have. I think that mentality is what hurt people the most.

Essences acquiring methods suck no matter when in the expansion cycle blizz chose to implement them. Their key failure is encouraging you to do content you are unlikely to enjoy (many people don't like raiding, or pvp, or wq, or rep grinds). They tie those activities into a major power boost that affects the entire game.

If it was "do a lot of pvp" to gain a pvp-only essence, it would have been fine, cool even. If it was "do m+ for a m+ only essence", just as good. But instead your best in slot essence for raiding can come from pvp, or a long rep grind in an unchallenging catchup zone. Its bad design. The fact alts don't have any catchup is a horrendous decision but one that mostly matters because the activities required are so unfun for so many people.

I definately agree it was an attempt to fix azerite, but it came out even worse due to lack of thoughtful reward structure.

[Grimbold21]

I'll tell you what I do: I rather gimp myself than go through this essence hassle on 5 other characters.

[Ange]

MAIN TANK/DPS hybrid iLvL 451
ALT1 DPS melee iLvL 446
ALT2 DPS range iLvL 446
ALT3 HEAL iLvL 445

Since LEGION I only maintain the gearprogression for my 15+ year old ALT characters and leave all other characters for the last weeks of the expansion when there is nothing else to do but leveling.

I min-max my alts (weekly-10 / raid-HC-essences / little bit of pvp-essence) and keep the ALTs at +/- 5 iLvL to my main.

My gold income from just playing my main char is around 80-120k per week, so I have less and less reasons to spend any time with my alts at all. I don't farm old content, since I got everything I wanted when it was current.

I keep my ALT's just to keep up with different class changes and for the multi-class/ROLE experience so I never experience the "grass is greener" feeling when playing my main. I know exactly what I like and what compromise there is with other classes.

I started with the MAIN>ALT cutbacks in MoP when a powerfull main could gear out a fleet of ALTs faster with BoE gear as the cumulative playtime with ALTs. LEGION and BfA fits to my ALT limitations just perfect.

[Doffen]

Essences acquiring methods suck no matter when in the expansion cycle blizz chose to implement them. Their key failure is encouraging you to do content you are unlikely to enjoy (many people don't like raiding, or pvp, or wq, or rep grinds). They tie those activities into a major power boost that affects the entire game.

If it was "do a lot of pvp" to gain a pvp-only essence, it would have been fine, cool even. If it was "do m+ for a m+ only essence", just as good. But instead your best in slot essence for raiding can come from pvp, or a long rep grind in an unchallenging catchup zone. Its bad design. The fact alts don't have any catchup is a horrendous decision but one that mostly matters because the activities required are so unfun for so many people.

I definately agree it was an attempt to fix azerite, but it came out even worse due to lack of thoughtful reward structure.

Yeah, It's just my opinion on it, I don't mind it. But it's easy to see that it was indeed a fix. But I can understand that people don't like it.

In the end, blizzard should have tested azerite armor 2000% more, so 60 days instead of 3(hope my math is correct).

[Zyrinx]

The blunder was Azerite Armor. Essences was a band aid for that. If we had essences from day 1, and more fleshed out, people wouldn't be as bothered, seeing this far into the expansion people would have been done farming them a long time ago.

That being said, the grind for essences is nowhere as bad as the artifact weapon, and grind in general is less in BfA than Legion. Somehow Legion was still much more popular despite that and more titanforging. Maybe the uninteresting content is the bigger issue? No mage tower, no artifact weapon transmog, no class mount, no class hall. For me that seem to be a motivational issue.

Just an example of power gain on an alt:
I got 1 day and 13 hours played on my paladin, 27 hours over 3 months. I do only WQ in Naz'jatar when its emissary. She is now at 65, got both minors done, 2 rank 3 essences and 1 rank 1, I farmed 1 hour of those 27 hours in mechagon so when 8.3 I can buy rank 3 on the last. She is 430, I do mythic+ 9-11s each week and pug heroic EP now and then. All that in 27 hours. I am more behind on gear than essences and Azerite, because thats the thing that takes most time between those "grinds", and that saying something. If people could think for themselves and just do the content they like instead of "waa waaa islands and WQs for 5 weeks until HoA level 60 waaa waa" the issue wouldn't be this bad.

But, I can see why people get a bit demotivated with both Azerite and Essences and as my guildie said it, he agreed with me with it not being so bad as people say, but that he also feel the same as other people that wants all the same essences as their main have. I think that mentality is what hurt people the most.

It's a fair point. For players like myself, without a solo challenge, there's nothing to actually _do_ with alts. Not that I don't level them anyways, because I do, but then they usually just sit. And, to be fair, no gear changes would really change that without different content.

[Twdft]

It would be nice to do mythic+ on a variety of chars but after grinding some of the essences 3 times I just don't give a fuck anymore.

Fresh 120s are greated like this so alchemy transmutes is all they do...

[kamuimac]

With Korrak's revenge being such a great way to level, I've leveled up a bunch of my alts to 120, but now I'm sitting with a bunch of max level characters with no profession skills, gear that's absolutely terrible, level 1 heart of azeroth, no war campaign followers, no rep, etc.

I know I can get BoA gear on my main using manapearls to at least gear them up a bit, but beyond that what do people do with their alts? Do you actively farm azerite/resources/rep with them?

i got almost all my alts to 120 with koraks.

now when 8.3 gonna hit gonna gear them up fast via new "high" itlv timewlaking gear

after that gonna spend quite a lot of time farming MoP and WoD raids to collect all transmogs from them . gonan be relatively fast when doing raids each week on 3-4 alts of each class :P (should have 40+ x120 when event ends )

[Doffen]

It's a fair point. For players like myself, without a solo challenge, there's nothing to actually _do_ with alts. Not that I don't level them anyways, because I do, but then they usually just sit. And, to be fair, no gear changes would really change that without different content.

Yeah, for me as well, it's raiding and doing dungeons really. While in Legion all the classes/specs had something to do outside of it, so playing different alts was very nice because of the content and rewards you got. All different weapon skins, different legendaries, different class mounts and so on. Class Hall and all the content that came with it was very good imo.

[Sevvy]

Benthic gear, get to naz, upgrade my neck. Hit the world bosses for a couple of weeks and then start wandering into the world of mythic+ and heroic raids. Patience and a little bit of work gets you a good neck and good gear. I usually stop working on one character and just do a +10 every week at about the time I get to ilvl 440. I'm now slowly working on my 4th. But motivation is waning with the new patch coming in two weeks.

Just going to level another 120 or two and see what the new patch brings.

[Valysar]

Old raids farm / professions.
And nothing else (because essences not accound wide ? jk)

[Jetstream]

you could farm essences, or just whine about not getting them on all your alts for free

Shit, i don't even care about the essences. I just want the damned thing to stop telling me I have an empty essence slot.

Thank you, WoW, I'm aware. But i don't feel like farming them so shut the fuck up, please.

[slime]

I try to farm all raid mounts with them weekly .... but I find myself tired of clearing last two of nighthold more than 4 times on 3 difficulties - so I rarely get all clears. One Rustfeather kill per alt - daily. If it is lucrative, I clear Nazjtar - and I will usually do the daily mechagnon quest on each alt. All my alchy/engineers make living steel and jards energy source for monthly sky golem - and finally the tailors make the hexcloth for 30 slot bags daily. If there is anything left to do I will normally run a warfront or isles.

PS - also a weekly kill of attuman (new) for that pretty red horse on each alt.

Always get the weekly that is mythic dungeon for high ivl free gear - but that's usually the only weekly I run.

[Sevvy]

Shit, i don't even care about the essences. I just want the damned thing to stop telling me I have an empty essence slot.

Thank you, WoW, I'm aware. But i don't feel like farming them so shut the fuck up, please.

OMG YES, so much!