Decision Point

We're three weeks from prepatch and less than 60 days from Battle for Azeroth's launch. It's time to stop waffling and make a decision. I have the new main narrowed down to three: Hunter, Monk, or Shaman. I've debated the pros and cons, watched videos, and streams, and played each on Beta.

First out

I need to eliminate one and that's going to be the Shaman. Both DPS specs for Shaman are a bit of a mess right now. The developers did call out both specs as known trouble spots for them so there's hope the situation could improve. This is good news for the Shaman community, but I have to go on the information I have available today. I don't love playing the Shaman enough to make him my main in the hopes Enhancement and Elemental get addressed before launch, nor do I love him enough to put up with a subpar 8.0 experience in the hopes of better days in 8.1. Now, maybe the developers blow me away with the next build, and I can always change my mind later, but as of today, Shaman is out.

Healing

My personality type (ISFJ) fits with playing a healer. I enjoyed healing in other games like Overwatch, but I've never gotten into it in WoW. I always resented playing Holy because healing got forced on me in Vanilla and Burning Crusade. I've done some healing leveling up on the Druid, Monk and Shaman, but I doubt the experience is anything like healing a raid or a high Mythic plus key. It's nice to be needed, and Fistweaving looks like fun. It might be a healing style I enjoy.

Head versus Heart

The more I thought about my decision, the more it felt like a head versus heart problem. All the logical reasons point to Monk. Monk has role flexibility and looks to be the stronger choice in Mythic plus. Monk has strong utility with Mystic Touch that no other class nor consumable can bring. Currently, we don't have anyone on the team planning on playing a Monk.

I've leveled my Monk into the mid 60s. While I was killing Vyrkul in the Howling Fjord, I got on Discord and talked to my raid leader. We talked about the Monk and the Hunter. I said many of the things I've written about in these blogs, but what was different was hearing myself. There was a passion, an excitement, a joy in my voice when I talked about the Hunter and my experiences playing Survival in Beta that was absent when I talked about the Monk. Through all my time leveling, I still haven't had that moment where I find unbridled joy in playing Monk.

You ever heard the line "if money were no object, what would you do for a career/job?" I always found this a bit strange since money is VERY real object in this world, but it goes to asking the person where their heart is. To translate this into WoW, I have my Monk, and Hunter on the same server. If I just start up WoW, which one am I most excited to log into? Monk or Hunter?


When I first logged into Beta, I was still Beast Mastery. I loved Haiti so I took the Animal Companion talent and called out my Devilsaur, Grimlock. By happenstance, the first pet in my stable was my Scalehide, Snarl. Seeing the two them, side by side with my Hunter brought a smile to face.

The Monk is probably what I should play. It's the logical choice, but it feels like someone playing Prot Paladin because their guild needs a tank. We play World of Warcraft for hours upon hours. Only passion can keep you in the chair. Only passion will get you to log in when there isn't a scrap of gear you need anywhere in the game.

The answer had been staring me in the face all along. I've made this decision so much harder than it needed to be.

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