Top Ten Reasons for an Alt

When I first started playing World of Warcraft I thought, "Man leveling one character is hard enough, I would never level another!"  But then as I got into endgame play, I found that having another character or multiple characters can make the game more fun, if only to break the monotony of always tanking or always healing.  So, I started an alt.  I'm really thankful to Blizzard though for providing the perk system which really helps with leveling.  If you're one of the nay-sayers who still doesn't have an alt or if you're a gold goblin looking to maximize your profits, read on past the jump to find out why having an alt is not just a good idea but a great idea!

10.   Sending Crafting Mats to Your Leveling Character

 Part of power-leveling or just leveling quickly is not spending time on leveling professions.  A lot of people wait until they are max level or close to it before they start leveling professions.  Sure, there’s a lot to be said for profession buffs like Toughness but a lot of people just want to get the leveling over with and choose to forego those buffs.  If you have an alt that can obtain leveling mats, either through purchase or farming, then your leveling character can level their professions while they’re waiting on that dungeon group or whatever it is that’s keeping them from grinding at the time.

 

9.       Sending Potions, Scrolls and Enhancements to Your Leveling Character

Buffs and item enchants/enhancements are essential for leveling, especially if you’re running dungeons.  Having an alt to send these to your leveling character saves your leveling character a trip to a capital city which, in some cases, can take forever.

 

8.       Banking and Auctioning

There’s a lot to be said for having an extra guild bank that’s exclusively yours.  The only drawback to it is that it isn’t compatible with the Remote Auction House (i.e. you can’t remotely create auctions from your guild bank inventory but you can remotely create auctions from your personal bank and bag inventory).  With that in mind, you may want to strategically arrange your bank and guild bank to put items that you need or want to sell immediately in your personal bank and other items in your guild bank.  You may want to read Cold’s post about inventory for the remote auction house for more info.

 

7.       Camping Daily Rewards

I don’t think anyone enjoys doing the Argent Tournament anymore but there’s money to be made there.  Having an alt who can camp out there and just do those quests can save you a lot of time by not having to travel back and forth (even with epic flying it seems like a pain in the ass to go all the way out there).  Also, if you’re an achievement hunter, you can park an alt by daily quest givers to check when a quest you need is available like An Old Favorite in Darnasus.

 

6.       Running Dungeons for Rewards

 So, you’ve got a level 90 warrior now and you’re bored with losing battlegrounds.  Make money!  Addons like Cta_Hawk will alert you to when the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries is available and this little sucker can pay a fair amount of gold depending on what it contains like Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw) or even Sen’jin Fetish , not to mention the greens and blues you pick up with random dungeons.  Also, you can find low level toons in trade chat looking for runs through dungeons so that they can get such-and-such item or such-and-such achievement.  These guys usually pay decent and there’s money to be made from running lower dungeons (Netherweave Bags anyone?).  Lastly you can solo some vanilla raids for dough.  Sulfuron Ingots pay pretty well on most servers just because some guys have a compensation issue.

 

5.       Farming Certain Zones

So you’ve noticed there’s not much Mountain Silversage on your server but you know there’s a demand for it?  Send an alt out there to farm it.  You’ll save time not having to travel out to those far zones like in Outlands and you’ll make a lot of cash off lazy people who don’t want to go farm it themselves.  If you have an alt with dual gathering professions, you can make even more by picking up other mats at the same time.  Check out the addons Routes and Gathermate to optimize your farming.

 

4.       Camping Rare or Limited Supply Vendors

So, Lil Timmy always spawns in the same point (47,56) and his White Kitten sells for 500G+, you can park an alt at his spawn point and log in on that toon every so often to see if he’s there.  Also, NPCScan can be configured to alert you when he spawns.  Not Alliance (I don’t blame you) or you don’t want to camp a vendor that takes forever to spawn, camp a vendor with limited quantity recipes or items like Skreah who sells Recipe: Transmute Primal Might which can be resold at 10 times the vendor price.  My very first 500G five years ago was from this first gold making technique I learned reselling Recipe: Thistle Tea                from Smudge Thunderwood.  Sure the game’s evolved but gold making stays the same.  Also, if you’re interested in making gold this way, The Consortium has a great post with TomTom waypoints for vendor runs.

 

3.       Camping Rare Spawns

       Reins of Poseidus sell for somewhere around 60k gold but Poseidus only spawns about every 72 to 120 hours. If you’ve got a spare alt that you can park out there, once again you don’t have to waste the time traveling just to check. You can search WoWhead for a list of rare NPCs and see their loot there. If you want to do the extra homework, you can search their loot individually on The Undermine Journal to see if it would be worth your trip.

 

2.       More Opportunities to Earn Valor Points

 The BOE items you can buy with Valor Points can prove very lucrative.  Of course, unfortunately, you can’t share Valor Points among characters, but the more Valor Points you have, the more money you can make from these babies.  It might be a good idea to advertise on Trade Chat so that you have a guaranteed buyer.  It’s harder to just sell epic BOE items outright but not impossible.

 

1.       More Crafting Cooldowns

The biggest reason to have alts and lots of them is to have more crafting cooldowns.  Truegold goes for upwards of 200G a bar for good reason, only alchemists can make it and it has a cooldown (although that may be removed in MoP and if so, there will be another crafted item with a cooldown, there always is).  If you have multiple alts with multiple cooldowns available, that’s just more money you can make.  Another way of putting this to use is by keeping an eye out on Trade Chat for people who want to use your cooldown and will pay well for it.  If you do use your cooldown to craft an item, be sure you’re paid well for it.  Essentially cooldowns are time since they take 24 hours or more to refresh and time is money, friend!