THE CENTRAL FINITE CURVE

Today I want to talk to you about the meaningless of existence in an indifferent universe, wait! Sorry, wrong meeting. No, today I want to talk about alts and how I use them, Cosmic Nihilism and Physics will just be here as garnish, let's get started...

NORMAL DISTRIBUTION
As I've covered before, I'm now on Arthas, Horde side. In the short time I've been there, I've been busy rebuilding my roster from the ground up...

STILL Majestic AF

I'm sticking with what I consider to be the natural approach, one of each class to fill the twelve existing character slots. Though surely I won't play all of them with any seriousness, I like having them for a variety of reasons. One, playing a character to max level gives you at least a passing understanding of how that class functions. It allows me to have a more reasonable grasp of what to expect from people in group settings. Additionally, you get access to different sides to the narrative. Legion's Order Hall Campaigns are actually very enjoyable, even if the levelling experience isn't quite up to par with that of Draenor. Hate me all you want, but we all know that was the one strength of that miserable expansion.

An army of alts also offers huge opportunities in terms of professions, gold, and resources. It does however introduce a load of redundancies and there's more than a little initial investment of time. But, the biggest problem is the logistical one, for that I find it best to focus narrowly and expand incrementally...

GAUSSIAN FUNCTION 
Whenever I start on a new server, I open up the trusty old spreadsheet and start plotting. So, I make a list of each of the characters I want to make: Name, Class, Race, and Professions. This actually is part of my choosing a new server, as I tend to value some names I use more than others, and am less likely to choose a specific server if say, the name Khaas is unavailable. For others, like my Paladin I like the name Titus, but as he's likely never going to be my main I'm happy adding squiggly lines and dots where needed to get a satisfactory approximation.

For each of my characters I then ask a single question, "What is my purpose?" For some, the answer is immediate and obvious, for Khaas he's my on again off again main. Historically he's been a tank, though he's flirted with DPS. In terms of professions, they're set: Blacksmithing and Enchanting. For my Warlock, it's similarly apparent. He's my new raiding main, specializing in Enchanting and Inscriptions, and since he can't be anything else he's ranged DPS. For those that are redundant the answer is obvious..

You pass butter...

Okay, that's not entirely fair or accurate. My Paladin, Titüs actually has a function within my roster of alts. In terms of professions, he's my Leatherworker. He also does Tailoring on the side, but then again half my alts do. His real purpose however is farming mounts/achievements. To be clear, all of my characters are perfectly capable of that, but dedicating my Paladin to the task means he has the maximum number of mounts available for the mount collecting achievements. I'm free to park him in an older area in order to keep farming for specific mounts and things, like Northrend for example. There's loads of mounts in the Argent Tournament, but it takes a LOT of dailies to get them. I'm okay with leaving the resident butter passer there to make it happen, not so with my Warlock.

Others have profession related functions, my Demon Hunter's excellent for farming transmog gear with his multiple movement gimmicks and self healing. He's also my main Alchemist and Tailor, so he ends up spending a lot of time in close proximity to the Obliterum Forge.

My Rogue, as I've covered previously is my Fence, he specializes in Jewelcrafting and getting rid of the goods on the AH. Added bonus for quick access to the Black Market, in short the perfect AH Alt. My Hunter is my Engineer/Skinner and Pet Tamer. My Druid's a dual gatherer, and everybody else is basically Enchanting/Tailoring and parked in their garrisons. They are the epitome of butter passing redundancy. So, the list basically looks like this:

1. Death Knight - Blacksmithing/Enchanting - Dungeon/Raid Alt
2. Demon Hunter - Alchemy/Tailoring - Obliterum Forge
3. Druid - Herbalism/Mining - Gatherer
4. Hunter - Engineering/Skinning - Pet Tamer
5. Mage - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
6. Monk - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
7. Paladin - Leatherworking/Tailoring - Mount Farmer
8. Priest - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
9. Rogue - Jewelcrafting/Mining - Trader
10. Shaman - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
11. Warlock - Enchanting/Inscriptions - Main
12. Warrior - Enchanting/Mining - Butter

Writing it out like this helps me visualize and organize, otherwise it's just a bunch of names and classes and it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. With the pecking order out of the way, I was free to start developing the talent...

DIVISION OF LABOR
I decided this time around to divide my roster into sets of threes, the first three would be my Warlock, Death Knight, and Demon Hunter respectively. These were the first to max, and switching back and forth allowed me to accumulate rested experience to maximize the levelling process. And these three, are frankly the most important. My DH makes bags and Obliterum. And the other two have been the ones I've been using to knock around raids and clear Legion achievements.

So, who's next? Hunter, Paladin, Rogue. Each of these three has specific goals, but they're goals that I won't be necessarily focusing on 24/7. Getting these maxed out also rounds out my profession coverage rather nicely.

Third string is led by my Druid, followed by my Monk, and Priest. Basically, that covers my healers, and gets my gatherer up to snuff. That just leaves the Mage, Shaman, and Warrior for the last to max. As I write this, I'm halfway through Draenor with several level 100s soaking up the rested experience for the next push.

But with that, I think I should leave you for now, but I imagine I'll be expanding on this a bit in the future as frankly there's some rather interesting things going on with my gold making schemes lately.

K