I have such an emotional bond to my Paladin, that I can't play other classes...

[Crackleslap]

I'm the complete opposite. I can't stick to one class. I'm currently leveling a druid. I've had like 37 druids before but i keep deleting them and recreating then re-leveling. I am already getting thoughts of leveling a new paladin, mage and warlock. I do this with every class. I can't stop either!

[Deleted]

I still love my paladin, but I HATE playing ret... soo many buttons.

I am prot forever, but always thought ret was too simplistic - for PvE at least (PvP rewards using lots of support abilities). Have you tried using the add-on CLC-ret? It made me so much happier when I go off-spec - basically it tells you which button to press next and although there may some exceptions (when you don't want to do what it suggests), it can improve play efficiency even among good ret players.

I'd wager there are less than 10 buttons in the rotation (CS, J, TV, Exo, Inq, HoW, L90, anything else? ... add/substitute HotR and DS for AoE).

Maybe it's all relative - I enjoyed playing a Jedi Knight in SWTOR, where I struggled to fit all my abilities into four action bars.

[asb]

I was stuck playing a warrior for some years much in the same way. I'd tried to level other characters, and actually managed to finish leveling one or two of them, but I couldn't get into playing them at any endgame capacity. I just found they'd be a worse version of what I could do on my warrior. What ended up getting me out of it on some level was trying a role I couldn't play as a warrior. I made a priest and leveled it entirely by healing dungeons. I found it a lot of fun, and while I still never did much endgame on it I played it in dungeons quite a lot. I wound up leveling a shaman later and switching to it as my new main character, and tried out the same thing with a druid this expansion but I think I'm going to go back to a shaman.

A true alt probably isn't for everyone; the best I've been able to do is switching mains and I'm still just stuck healing. Still, my advice would be to try other roles primarily. If you don't enjoy tanking or dps even across multiple characters, maybe just try a pvp character? If healing is really just the only role for you, it might be hard to play anything else.

[Deleted]

I have about 6 Ret pallys lvl 70+ because I love them so much.

[Firecrest]

After that, start to fill out any remaining professions by leveling further alts. You got to have them all.

This is what gave me the fortitude to roll an alt alongside my Paladin main. Pally was my first character in Vanilla and stayed with me ever since. In WotLK, I got sick of paying through the nose for mats (only noobs have gathering professions on their raiding mains) and so I rolled a Druid for mining and herbing becuase that's the best class for it. I had to get to max level so I wouldn't get raped by mobs and I had to have decent gear because I played on a PvP server. After the "need" of these things gave me the incentive to join our alt raids, I found that I actually enjoyed it and ended up spending much more time tanking than I did gathering.

[Deleted]

I had a ret paladin in tbc that was an alt alongside my main which was my shammy, I never thought I'd switch mains, but then along came WOTLK, and I specced prot for the first time, I ended up using my prot paladin for the entire expansion and then half of Cata, I have some really amazing memories with that pala, weird how a game can make you feel so emotional, but I knew some really awesome people who I would play with regularly, and I still to this day can't think of a better time than that expansion, It really was the best times I have spent on WoW.

But as cata came along, and things changed, I simply lost interest in that paladin, I didn't stop playing her entirely, I just put her on the sidelines, and she became an alt, and a new warrior became my main for quite some time. Maybe it was the new class mechanics I didn't like, maybe it was just me gettnig bored of the same thing, I don't know, but that's not the point.

The point is, I think you should just do what you enjoy, for as long as you enjoy it, love your paladin? great, don't feel like you have to make a main just because everybody else does, maybe a time will come along where you aren't as interested in your pala, and you will have the motivation to make a new character, but until that time comes, just play your paladin

[yjmark]

For me, the key was how you played the other classes. Try to avoid doing anything similar between them. If you try to play them similar, then they will just be a pale shadow of the former.

Example - if you try a warrior tank, you should be charging, jumping, etc... all over the place, and as often as possible. Paladin mobility is horrid. Warrior mobility is phenomenal. So maximize the amount of mobility you use when playing a warrior to avoid it seeming like another Paladin without the raid utility. Of course, this could backfire.....I reached a point in Cata where I literally could no longer play my Pally tank because it just felt like I had a permanent "slow" debuff on me :P

[Deathgoose]

I still love my paladin, but I HATE playing ret... soo many buttons.
And because my paladin's a Draenei Male, It's somehow really hard to find a decent transmogging-outfit

Male Draenei Pally as well as my main, so I got him T4 + offset pieces complete with the Hammer or the Naaru to make him look like the BC opening cinematic Draenei. Now if only we had those visible librams.

Although I suggest not using the actual T4 helm, because it looks pretty dumb. Instead, grab http://www.wowhead.com/item=30048 from Hydross in SSC.

And if Ret isn't your thing, then grab the http://www.wowhead.com/item=28825 from Gruul for your Holy/Prot shield. If Holy, grab http://www.wowhead.com/item=30918 from 3rd boss in Hyjal. If prot, well, in 5.2 you can xmog main-hand to one-hands, so you can just wait like I'm doing.

[Ceece]

The opportunity needs to be right, OP. More of you will miss your paladin, the lesser half wanting change. I was in the same boat as you and I came back to my main. I've tried to switch characters. Leveled my paladin toward the end of WotLK and tried swapping to her for Cataclysm. Never happened. Same with my monk currently, but that can't happen. I love my druid sincerely. I'm going on 6 1/2 years with my druid. Long time I think, but I enjoy playing her and there's nothing that can replace her. That's why we have alts! For the backbone of a main, when your falling backward, they're there to catch chu.