Retail WoW & Me in 2023

Ever since the release of WoW Classic in 2019, I've been doing an end-of-year summary at the end of December to track my progress throughout the game, by listing the characters I've been playing and what they've achieved in the last year. This has turned into a very interesting tradition, as a lot can happen in a year and my interests and aspirations have completely changed direction in that time more than once. Without this track record I wouldn't have nearly as clear a picture of that.

I haven't done the same for retail WoW, except for musing on the progress I'd made after a year back in 2021. As my investment in that side of the game has grown, that has increasingly felt like an oversight, so I've decided to fix that going forward. So without further ado, my retail characters and what they've been up to in the past year... and to some degree since 2021, since I'm not always sure when exactly I did certain things and only have that old post as a reference point right now:

Shindragosa

• Level 70 dracthyr evoker
• 14 days, 19 hours /played
• Dragonflight professions: 90 Leatherworking, 100 Skinning, 100 Cooking, 100 Fishing
  
• Other professions: 56 Northrend Skinning, 20 Cataclysm Skinning, 31 Draenor Skinning, 81 Legion Skinning, 7 Kul Tiran Skinning, 15 Draenor Cooking, 66 Classic Fishing, 5 Cataclysm Fishing, 15 Kul Tiran Fishing, 99 Archaeology

The hero class that's new with the expansion became my main, who'd have thought? Even though their healing isn't as obviously OP compared to other healers the way dps and tanking were for other hero classes when they were first released (at least as far as I'm aware), I've come to enjoy the unique play style... plus to be honest, at the start of Dragonflight, just the idea of being able to go into the expansion with an empty inventory was extremely appealing (as opposed to sorting out my monk's bags and figuring out what to keep and what to throw away after Shadowlands). For how generous retail WoW is with bag space, it also has a weird habit of filling your bags with absolute tons of crap at endgame.

The fact that her leatherworking is still not maxed out this far into the expansion is a reflection on how the changes to the crafting system haven't really worked for me, even though I initially liked the sound of them, but that could be a whole post of its own really.

Mehg

• Level 70 night elf demon hunter
  
• 10 days, 4 hours /played
• Dragonflight professions: 100 Mining, 69 Jewelcrafting, 68 Cooking, 52 Fishing
  
• Other professions: 16 Classic Mining, 17 Cataclysm Mining, 100 Legion Mining, 150 Shadowlands Mining, 18 Classic Cooking, 31 Legion Cooking, 75 Shadowlands Cooking, 74 Classic Fishing, 70 Legion Fishing, 27 Shadowlands Fishing, 800 Archaeology
  

The demon hunter that became my first max-level alt in Shadowlands is still my main alt, I think because it's a relatively straightforward class to play at a basic level among a sea of overly complex rotations in retail. Earlier in the expansion she felt a bit squishy (regardless of gear), but that improved a lot after one of the most recent patches. She also still has the same transmog because I really like that set from the demon hunter starting experience... I just change the look of her glaives sometimes.

Tilarea

• Level 70 lightforged draenei priest
  
• 5 days, 10 hours /played
• Dragonflight professions: 64 Tailoring, 64 Enchanting, 16 Cooking, 37 Fishing
  
• Other professions: 100 Classic Tailoring, 75 Outland Tailoring, 5 Northrend Tailoring, 2 Cataclysm Tailoring, 64 Pandaria Tailoring, 100 Draenor Tailoring, 65 Kul Tiran Tailoring, 100 Shadowlands Tailoring, 96 Classic Enchanting, 26 Outland Enchanting, 25 Northrend Enchanting, 11 Cataclysm Enchanting, 20 Pandaria Enchanting, 25 Draenor Enchanting, 16 Kul Tiran Enchanting, 49 Shadowlands Enchanting, 2 Classic Cooking, 6 Shadowlands Cooking, 15 Outland Fishing, 11 Shadowlands Fishing, 13 Archaeology
  

This was the first alt I levelled without any involvement from my husband, simply because I wanted to be a priest again! She's pugged dungeons, done some PvP, worked on her professions and run a fair few old raids for transmog (as you can tell from her sporting the old tier two set). I just still love being a holy priest.

Tharisa

• Level 70 human hunter
  
• 2 days, 18 hours /played
• Dragonflight professions: 18 Leatherworking, 100 Skinning, 14 Cooking, 23 Fishing
  
• Other professions: 119 Classic Leatherworking, 205 Classic Skinning, 70 Northrend Skinning, 5 Cataclysm Skinning, 9 Draenor Skinning, 33 Legion Skinning, 129 Classic Cooking, 37 Archaeology
  

Ah, my old human hunter. I eventually levelled her up because I really wanted to have a better understanding of how retail hunter compares to its classic version. It's still a bit weird. I'm currently marksman spec because that has been my go-to for many expansions, but I don't know if it's still the best option for me in retail. I do still like having a pet, and with the new talent tree you can actually opt out of the "petless" marksman talent, but I have no idea how viable that is and haven't been able to find any discussion about it. Not that it matters, considering that I'm not doing any hard content on her, but I guess it would be interesting to know.

Groghue

• Level 70 worgen rogue
  
• 1 day, 18 hours /played
• Dragonflight professions: 87 Herbalism, 105 Skinning, 4 Cooking, 35 Fishing
  
• Other professions: 259 Classic Herbalism, 175 Classic Skinning, 23 Cataclysm Skinning, 21 Classic Fishing, 10 Cataclysm Fishing, 107 Archaeology
  

Enter Grogu (silent h, silent e), though she also responds to "rogue" (silent g, silent h). I created her during Shadowlands and actually made a post about it at the time. Considering how much time I spend running around aimlessly while levelling, I think her /played time goes to show just how fast retail levelling is nowadays. You can also tell from her professions that she's hardly seen anything of the world, having only really quested in the old world and on the Dragon Isles. I guess that's probably fairly typical of the modern retail levelling experience.

I also learned from levelling her that I'm terrible at playing rogue. Maybe it's just the subtlety spec, but in an interesting contrast to how the class works in Classic, it feels like you need to be hitting some sort of dps cooldown non-stop or you do basically no damage. In one heroic I did, I was struggling to out-dps the healer...

Oh, and she doesn't have a hump; that's a backpack. It just always looks a bit funny on the character selection screen.

Shinlu

• Level 61 human monk
• 22 days, 9 hours /played
• Professions: 50 Outland Leatherworking, 16 Northrend Leatherworking, 150 Kul Tiran Leatherworking, 100 Shadowlands Leatherworking, 14 Classic Skinning, 75 Outland Skinning, 51 Northrend Skinning, 40 Cataclysm Skinning, 80 Legion Skinning, 175 Kul Tiran Skinning, 150 Shadowlands Skinning, 5 Dragonflight Skinning, 300 Classic Cooking, 75 Cataclysm Cooking, 48 Kul Tiran Cooking, 75 Shadowlands Cooking, 300 Classic Fishing, 39 Outland Fishing, 12 Northrend Fishing, 75 Cataclysm Fishing, 16 Pandaria Fishing, 100 Legion Fishing, 175 Kul Tiran Fishing, 200 Shadowlands Fishing, 678 Archaeology
  

My old Shadowlands main gained a bit of XP from doing stuff like the human heritage quest chain, but other than that she's mostly been chilling in Stormwind since Dragonflight. I feel a bit bad about it because I do still love her, but the thought of having to sort out her bags (there's probably still a dozen different kinds of anima in there for example) terrifies me.

Shinnins

• Level 60 worgen druid
  
• 17 days, 10 hours /played
• Professions: 300 Classic Alchemy, 75 Outland Alchemy (Transmutation), 75 Northrend Alchemy, 75 Cataclysm Alchemy, 75 Pandaria Alchemy, 10 Shadowlands Alchemy, 300 Classic Herbalism, 75 Outland Herbalism, 75 Northrend Herbalism, 75 Cataclysm Herbalism, 75 Pandaria Herbalism, 43 Shadowlands Herbalism, 300 Classic Cooking, 75 Outland Cooking, 75 Northrend Cooking, 75 Cataclysm Cooking, 75 Pandaria Cooking (with all the different "cooking ways" maxed out too), 12 Shadowlands Cooking, 300 Classic Fishing, 75 Outland Fishing, 75 Northrend Fishing, 75 Cataclysm Fishing, 75 Pandaria Fishing, 22 Shadowlands Fishing, 608 Archaeology

My main from my brief flirtation with retail during Mists of Pandaria. Back in 2021 I bemoaned that I never even finished all the zones there, but I did actually get the husband to go back with me and do Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes in Chromie Time. Then I did a little bit of Shadowlands, but I didn't even get to start on my covenant story before Dragonflight came out.

Pishin

• Level 60 pandaren priest
  
• 5 days, 13 hours /played
• Professions: 4 Classic Herbalism, 100 Draenor Herbalism, 56 Shadowlands Herbalism, 21 Pandaria Inscription, 100 Draenor Inscription, 64 Shadowlands Inscription, 6 Classic Cooking, 6 Cataclysm Cooking, 105 Draenor Cooking, 17 Shadowlands Cooking, 100 Draenor Fishing, 17 Shadowlands Fishing, 117 Archaeology
  

Ah, my "piss priest", who levelled through WoD with the husband's monk and then did a bit of Shadowlands endgame. We actually never quite finished all of WoD - maybe once the level cap goes up again, I'll make him do the missing zones with me in Chromie Time, just like I did with the druid.

Other than that, I've been feeling a bit lost with this character. For a while, I logged her daily to tend her garrison, but eventually I had more resources than I could possibly use and gave up on it. I also levelled her as discipline, and regardless of the many changes Blizzard made to that spec over the years, I've pretty much disliked every single iteration of it. I thought I'd try respeccing to shadow, my original love, but all that nonsense with insanity and tentacles is just totally alien to me as well. It's weird to still love the priest class while not getting along with two of its three specs.

Tidella

• Level 48 Kul Tiran shaman
  
• 1 day, 17 hours /played
• Professions: 106 Classic Mining, 3 Cataclysm Mining, 140 Classic Engineering, 3 Cataclysm Engineering, 40 Classic Cooking
  

This character was part of a levelling group with guildies, but we stalled out after the issues we ran into with Wrath dungeons described in this post. Since then she's been sitting in that weird limbo where I kind of don't want to play her because I'm still holding on to the idea that we'll pick things up again one day and the reality of having to accept that this probably won't happen.

Violan

• Level 46 void elf mage
  
• 14 hours /played
• Professions: 8 Classic Herbalism, 61 Legion Herbalism, 2 Classic Skinning, 74 Legion Skinning, 40 Classic Cooking, 8 Legion Fishing, 30 Archaeology
  

After unlocking all those allied races, I thought I should actually create some characters using them. I made a void elf mage because it seemed like a good combo and I didn't have a mage yet. She's currently levelling through Legion.

Marquess

• Level 45 dark iron dwarf death knight
  
• 11 hours /played
• Professions: 139 Kul Tiran Herbalism, 80 Kul Tiran Mining, 15 Kul Tiran Fishing, 28 Archaeology
  

Same story for this dark iron death knight - plus I kind of wanted to level a plate-wearer to unlock certain transmog pieces. She's making her way through BfA one chunk of rested XP at a time, but because she's both a miner and a herbalist, she actually gets to do very little questing between all the gathering (which awards absolutely stupid amounts of XP).

Kehnan

• Level 19 dwarf paladin
  
• 7 hours /played
• Professions: 71 Draenor Blacksmithing, 2 Classic Mining, 3 Draenor Mining
  

This was actually my first attempt at getting a plate-wearer levelled up, but I haven't logged into her in so long that, before I did so to get her /played number for this post, she'd been marked as inactive and eligible for the free gear boost. I had this idea for taking another character through WoD while also checking out the state of paladin tanking, but the garrison quickly sapped me of all enthusiasm.

Kara

• Level 59 orc warlock
  
• 1 day, 3 hours /played
• Professions: 50 Zandalari Tailoring, 7 Classic Enchanting, 45 Zandalari Enchanting, 26 Zandalrai Cooking, 68 Zandalari Fishing, 80 Archaelogy
  

My one Hordie, about whom I've also written a bit here. She's currently level-locked at 59 to see the rest of Horde-side BfA without outlevelling it, and also picked up all the different quests to unlock the BfA allied races at the same time. She's got a long way to go, but at least it's something different.